Follow: https://twitter.com/rediandev
This is a simple Twitter bot and will retweet, favorite/like randomly on the basis of hashtags as a query that we will use.
Setup an empty directory and initialise it with:$ npm init to configure this web application with package.json file. Then create two new files: bot.js & config.js in that directory.
bot.js will be our main app file in which we will be writing the source code of our Twitter Bot, and so in package.json edit the main field to:
{
"main": "bot.js",
},
Your current directory structure should look like this:
root/project-name |- bot.js |- config.js |- package.json
After logging to to your Twitter account, follow to this link: https://developer.twitter.com/en/apps to create a new application. Fill out the necessary fields in the form click on the button Create Your Twitter Application. After creating the application, look for ‘Keys and Access Tokens’ under the nav-panes and click on 'Generate Token Actions' and then copy:
Open the config.js file and paste all four values inside it. Expose those values using module.export:
//config.js /** TWITTER APP CONFIGURATION
Now, the Twitter bot’s configuration is step is complete. Please note, for every different application, the consumer key, consumer secret, access_token and access_token_secret will differ.
Since the configuration step is complete, now let’s install our third requisite that is Twitter API client for node and will help us to communicate to Twitter API and provide an API for all necessary actions (such as retweet and favorite a tweet).
We will start by installing the dependency we need for our application.
$ npm install --save twit
After the dependency has finished installing, go to the bot.js file and require the dependency and config.js file.
var twit = require(’twit’); var config = require(’./config.js’);
Pass the configuration (consumer and access tokens) of our Twitter application in config.js to twit:
var Twitter = new twit(config);
PLEASE NOTE: You must refer to twit documentation for a deep reference.
Let’s write a function expression that finds the latest tweets according to the query passed as a parameter. We will initialise a params object that will hold various properties to search a tweet, but most importantly query or q property that will refine our searches. Whatever value you feed in this property, our bot will search the tweets to retweet based on this criteria. You can feed this property values like a twitter handler, to monitor a specific twitter account or a #hashtag. For our example bot, we have find latest tweets on #nodejs.
This is how the functionality of the retweet bot starts:
var retweet = function() {
var params = {
q: '#nodejs, #Nodejs',
result_type: 'recent',
lang: 'en'
}
The other two properties: result_type and lang are optional. On defining the result_type: 'recent' notifies bot to only search for the latest tweets, tweets that have occurred in the time period since our bot has started or it made the last retweet.
Our next step is to search for the tweets based on our parameters. For this, we will use Twitter.get function provided by twit API to GET any of the REST API endpoints. The REST API endpoint is a reference to the Twitter API endpoint we are going to make a call to search for tweets. The Twitter.get function accepts three arguments: API endpoint, params object (defined by us) and a callback
To post or to retweet the tweet our bot has found we use Twitter.post() method to POST any of the REST API endpoints. It also takes the same number of arguments as Twitter.get().
Now to automate this action we defined above, we can use JavaScript’s timer function setInterval() to search and retweet after a specific period of time.
// grab & retweet as soon as program is running... retweet(); // retweet in every 50 minutes setInterval(retweet, 3000000);
Please note that all JavaScript’s Timer functions take the amount of time argument in milliseconds.
Similar to retweet bot we can define and initialise another function expression that will search and favorite a tweet randomly. Yes, the difference here is to search and grab the tweet randomly. We will start by creating a parameter object params that will consist of three properties as in retweet() function expression. The bot will search for tweets using the same .get() function provided by twit API to GET any of the Twitter API endpoints. In our case, we need search/tweets. Then we will store the status of the search for tweet to favorite in a variable and in a another variable we will apply the random function by passing the “status of the search” variable as an argument.
Note that the tweets searched by our bot are all stored in an array. Again, we use JavaScript’s timer function setInterval()to search and favorite the tweet after a specific period of time in milliseconds.
To run this bot, go to your terminal:
$ node bot.js
To avoid this monotonous process you can use npm scripts or nodemon. You can also deploy this app on Heroku for a continuous integration.
To use npm scripts, make this edit under scripts in package.json :
{
"scripts": {
"start": "node bot.js",
}
}
Then from terminal:
$ npm start
Signup for a free account by filling a form on https://heroku.com .
After a successful signup, you will be redirected to dashboard.
Create a new app by clicking the New button at the top right.
Fill in your app name (it should be in lower case) and choose your relevant region.
Move to the directory where you have saved the bot source file using CLI.
Download Heroku CLI. Refer the document here on how:
https://devcenter.heroku.com/categories/command-line
Install it by using Teminal on Mac or Windows Powershell:
$heroku
$heroku login
Give the credentials. You will be logged in.
Choose your Deployment method on the dashboard, it could be Heroku Git, GitHub or Dropbox. But I highly recommend to go with Heroku Git.
Follow the cammands given under deployment methods to turn your directory into a git repository and to deploy on heroku.
Make sure the app is worker app not a web app. Procfile is necessary for that.
MIT License
Copyright (c) 2020, Redian Marku. All rights reserved.