Twitter Bots
This is a development repository for Twitter bots. I've incldued a few examples to get you started.
- save_hashtag
Connects to Twitter streaming API for specified Hashtag and stores all Tweets to JSON files on hard drive.
- word_analysis
This tool processes a set of Tweets saved as JSON files and then performs a word analysis giving you the top keywords found for your recorded session.
- elastic_forwarder
This bot streams a certain Hashtag and immediately forwards the messages on to an Elastic Search instance, you can then monitor the tweets in real-time - checking for trends and activity around the globe.
- slack_forwarder
This bot provides a bridge between Twitter and your favourite Slack channel. In the example messages are posted into the #general channel, but you will probably want to create a dedicated channel that people can opt/in out of. Bear in mind that you could also do processing on the Tweeet before forwarding it - or even filter out unwanted/wanted material.
Related
Github bot
Github Gazing sends you emails or notifications when someone stars or forks your repo on Github. It's useful because webhooks have to be set up manually one per repo. This watches every repository automatically.
The project is also written in Node.js and I run it through Docker on a small Azure VM.
Raspberry Pi
The Pi is really the perfect place to run this kind of code. It has 1GB RAM (which is similar to an AWS T2.micro instance) and can be left on all day consuming around 1-3W.
Find out more about the Pi and Docker with my blog series.
Rate-limiting and troubleshooting
Notes on limiting / troubleshooting
Error: Status Code: 420
The Twitter API will aggressively rate-limit how frequently you open and close connections. This is not ideal for a patchy internet connection or for frequent code changes. Try to do as much as you can disconnected or through unit testing.
Without due care and attention the 420 error can be prolonged from a few seconds to a few minutes and eventually your IP address can end-up being banned.