README.md

This is a simple twitter bot written in node. After specifying a hashtag to follow, the bot will filter tweets based on arbitrary criteria (examples can be found in app.js), after which the tweet could be favorited and retweeted, and the user could be followed based on simple chance.

Setup

In order to run this, you'll need to first go to dev.twitter.com to create a new app ("Manage your apps" under tools at the very bottom).

Once you've created an app, you'll need to generate an access token and token secret, which can be done through the "Keys and Access Tokens" tab in the app management ui.

Then, run npm install to get the dependencies.

If you want to log to MongoDB, start up a local instance at the default port.

Configuration

To connect to the twitter API, you'll need to create a file in the root of this project called config.js, which should look like this:

module.exports = {
    consumer_key: 'yourKey',
    consumer_secret: 'yourSecret',
    access_token: 'yourAccessToken',
    access_token_secret: 'yourTokenSecret'
};

In the first few lines of app.js, you'll see variables you can change that will name the MongoDB database and collection. You can also specify which word or hashtag you want to filter incoming tweets on.

Running it

All you need to do to run the app is node app.js, after which you'll see logged output for incoming tweets, as well as Fav/RT/Follow activity scheduled and realized.

I like to persist the log while watching it, so I tend to run it like so:

node app.js | tee -a some-file.log

DISCLAIMER

This is a twitter bot that acts as if it were you, on your twitter account. It's not smart. It can't make judgment calls like you might want were you to be personally curating your twitter feed. As such, use at your own risk, particularly if you have any social media capital attached to the account you're using the bot on.