x-reader

Read-only Twitter/X CLI for searching tweets, reading timelines, bookmarks, and replies from the terminal. Inspired by Bird CLI.

Uses your own X/Twitter cookies. One user, one account. No API keys required.

Features

• Search tweets by keyword or advanced query (from:, to:, filter:, etc.)
• Read a user's timeline
• Read a single tweet by ID or URL
• Read replies to any tweet
• Read your bookmarks (with --all for full export)
• Look up user profiles by handle
• JSON output for piping into other tools (jq, scripts, etc.)
• Auto-discovers X's rotating GraphQL query IDs (no manual updates needed)
• Zero config beyond two browser cookies

Why x-reader?

• No Twitter API keys or developer account needed
• Read-only by design (no accidental tweets, likes, or follows)
• Works with X's current GraphQL endpoints
• Lightweight: single dependency (Commander)
• Scriptable: JSON output for automation and data pipelines

Install

From npm (recommended)

npm install -g x-reader

From source

git clone https://github.com/DjinnFoundry/x-reader.git
cd x-reader
npm install
npm run build
npm link

Quick start

# 1. Set up authentication (interactive)
x-reader setup

# 2. Search tweets
x-reader search "machine learning"

# 3. Read a user's timeline
x-reader user-tweets @naval -n 10

# 4. Export your bookmarks as JSON
x-reader bookmarks --all --format json > bookmarks.json

Authentication

You need two cookies from x.com: auth_token and ct0.

Option 1: Interactive setup

x-reader setup

Option 2: Environment variables

export AUTH_TOKEN="your_auth_token"
export CT0="your_ct0"

Option 3: CLI flags

x-reader search "query" --auth-token xxx --ct0 yyy

Where to find your cookies

1. Go to x.com and log in
2. Open DevTools (F12) -> Application -> Cookies -> x.com
3. Copy auth_token and ct0 values

Config is saved to ~/.config/x-reader/config.json.

Usage

Search tweets

x-reader search "machine learning"
x-reader search "from:elonmusk" -n 5
x-reader search "AI safety" --format json

Read a user's timeline

x-reader user-tweets @steipete
x-reader user-tweets elonmusk -n 10
x-reader user-tweets @naval --format json

Read a single tweet

x-reader read 1234567890
x-reader read https://x.com/user/status/1234567890
x-reader read https://x.com/user/status/1234567890 --format json

Read replies

x-reader replies 1234567890
x-reader replies https://x.com/user/status/1234567890 --format json

Export bookmarks

x-reader bookmarks
x-reader bookmarks -n 50
x-reader bookmarks --all --format json

User lookup

x-reader user-lookup @steipete
x-reader user-lookup naval --format json

Query ID management

# Show cached query IDs
x-reader query-ids

# Force refresh from x.com (when IDs rotate)
x-reader query-ids --refresh

Output formats

• text (default) - human-readable
• json - machine-readable, pipe to jq or save to file

# Pipe to jq
x-reader search "typescript" --format json | jq '.tweets[].text'

# Save to file
x-reader bookmarks --all --format json > my-bookmarks.json

Programmatic use

import { XReaderClient } from 'x-reader';

const client = new XReaderClient({
  cookies: { authToken: '...', ct0: '...' },
});

const result = await client.search('hello world', 10);
console.log(result.tweets);

How it works

X uses GraphQL endpoints with rotating query IDs embedded in their client-side JavaScript bundles. x-reader auto-discovers these IDs by scraping the JS bundles, caching them locally with a 24-hour TTL. No manual ID updates needed.

If you get 404 errors, force a refresh:

x-reader query-ids --refresh

Architecture

src/
├── api/
│   ├── client.ts      # Main API client (read-only operations)
│   ├── constants.ts   # Bearer token, URLs, default query IDs
│   ├── features.ts    # GraphQL feature flags per operation
│   ├── parser.ts      # Response parsing (raw JSON -> Tweet/User)
│   ├── query-ids.ts   # Auto-discovery of query IDs from x.com JS
│   └── types.ts       # TypeScript interfaces
├── cli/
│   └── index.ts       # CLI entry point (commander)
├── utils/
│   ├── auth.ts        # Cookie resolution (env, config, bird compat)
│   └── format.ts      # Output formatting
└── index.ts           # Library exports

Credits

• Inspired by Bird CLI by @steipete
• Uses the same public bearer token as the X web client
• Query ID discovery mechanism reverse-engineered from Bird v0.8.0

License

MIT