https://github.com/syncom/twitbot-tih

A Twitter bot that tweets today-in-history events
https://github.com/syncom/twitbot-tih

today-in-history twitter-bot

Last synced: 10 months ago
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A Twitter bot that tweets today-in-history events

• Host: GitHub
• URL: https://github.com/syncom/twitbot-tih
• Owner: syncom
• License: bsd-2-clause
• Created: 2015-03-24T05:17:27.000Z (almost 11 years ago)
• Default Branch: master
• Last Pushed: 2024-07-27T13:32:18.000Z (over 1 year ago)
• Last Synced: 2025-04-03T13:39:14.670Z (11 months ago)
• Topics: today-in-history, twitter-bot
• Language: Python
• Size: 36.1 KB
• Stars: 3
• Watchers: 3
• Forks: 1
• Open Issues: 0
• Metadata Files:
  • Readme: README.md
  • License: LICENSE

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README

          
# twitbot-tih

[![Sanity Checks](https://github.com/syncom/twitbot-tih/actions/workflows/sanity.yml/badge.svg)](https://github.com/syncom/twitbot-tih/actions/workflows/sanity.yml)

A Twitter bot that tweets today-in-history events.

## Dependencies

- Python 3 with virtual environment. On Ubuntu, install `python3-virtualenv`.

- Unix/Linux environment and the 'date' command

- If you run on a Raspberry Pi, you might need to install `rng-tools` for the

  SSL connection to work

## Usage

1. Install with the following commands

   ```bash

   git clone https://github.com/syncom/twitbot-tih.git

   cd twitbot-tih

   make install

   ```

2. Create a Twitter app and obtain the API Key, API Secret, Access Token, and

   Access Token Secret for the app. This can be done by following the

   instructions at:

   .

   After April 2023, if you start seeing API authentication errors, and a

   message like "This app has violated Twitter rules and policies" on the

   Twitter app setting page, sign up for the Free tier of "[Twitter API

   v2](https://developer.twitter.com/en/portal/products)" (at no cost), and

   clicked button "downgrade to free"; this resolved the auth issue

   ([reference](https://twittercommunity.com/t/this-app-has-violated-twitter-rules-and-policies/191204/10)).

   You may also need to put the Twitter app under a "project" for better

   organization and monitoring of the app.

3. Set up authentication and authorization secrets. The preferred way is to set

   environment variables `TIH_API_KEY`, `TIH_API_SECRET`, `TIH_ACCESS_TOKEN`,

   and `TIH_ACCESS_TOKEN_SECRET` with API Key, API Secret, Access Token, and

   Access Token Secret values obtained in the last step. Alternatively, one can

   override the corresponding strings in the file [.auth](./.auth) with

   appropriate secret strings. When any of the aforementioned environment

   variables are set, they take precedence over values in the `.auth` file.

4. Activate the virtual environment.

   ```bash

   . ./venv

   ```

5. In virtual environment, run `python today_in_history_bot.py` to tweet.

6. (Optional) Create a cron job to invoke the bot once a day.

   [twitbot-tih-run.sh](twitbot-tih-run.sh) shows an example script that can be

   called within the cronjob.

7. To uninstall, `deactivate` from the virtual environment if needed, and do

   `make clean`.