npm package: @microwavedev/twitter-scraper
Description: A port of n0madic/twitter-scraper to Node.js.
Author: karashiiro
Latest version: 0.9.2

# twitter-scraper
[![Documentation badge](https://img.shields.io/badge/docs-here-informational)](https://the-convocation.github.io/twitter-scraper/)

A port of [n0madic/twitter-scraper](https://github.com/n0madic/twitter-scraper) to Node.js.

> Twitter's API is annoying to work with, and has lots of limitations — luckily their frontend (JavaScript) has it's own API, which I reverse-engineered. No API rate limits. No tokens needed. No restrictions. Extremely fast.
>
> You can use this library to get the text of any user's Tweets trivially.

Known limitations:

* Search operations require logging in with a real user account via `scraper.login()`.
* Twitter's frontend API does in fact have rate limits ([#11](https://github.com/the-convocation/twitter-scraper/issues/11))

## Installation
This package requires Node.js v16.0.0 or greater.

NPM:
```sh
npm install @the-convocation/twitter-scraper
```

Yarn:
```sh
yarn add @the-convocation/twitter-scraper
```

TypeScript types have been bundled with the distribution.

## Usage
Most use cases are exactly the same as in [n0madic/twitter-scraper](https://github.com/n0madic/twitter-scraper).
Channel iterators have been translated into [AsyncGenerator](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/AsyncGenerator)
instances, and can be consumed with the corresponding `for await (const x of y) { ... }` syntax.

### Browser usage
This package directly invokes the Twitter API, which does not have permissive CORS headers. With the default
settings, requests will fail unless you disable CORS checks, which is not advised. Instead, applications must
provide a CORS proxy and configure it in the `Scraper` options.

Proxies (and other request mutations) can be configured with the request interceptor transform:

```ts
const scraper = new Scraper({
  transform: {
    request(input: RequestInfo | URL, init?: RequestInit) {
      // The arguments here are the same as the parameters to fetch(), and
      // are kept as-is for flexibility of both the library and applications.
      if (input instanceof URL) {
        const proxy =
          "https://corsproxy.io/?" +
          encodeURIComponent(input.toString());
        return [proxy, init];
      } else if (typeof input === "string") {
        const proxy =
          "https://corsproxy.io/?" + encodeURIComponent(input);
        return [proxy, init];
      } else {
        // Omitting handling for example
        throw new Error("Unexpected request input type");
      }
    },
  },
});
```

[corsproxy.io](https://corsproxy.io) is a public CORS proxy that works correctly with this package.

The public CORS proxy [corsproxy.org](https://corsproxy.org) *does not work* at the time of writing (at least
not using their recommended integration on the front page).

#### Next.js 13.x example:
```tsx
"use client";

import { Scraper, Tweet } from "@the-convocation/twitter-scraper";
import { useEffect, useMemo, useState } from "react";

export default function Home() {
  const scraper = useMemo(
    () =>
      new Scraper({
        transform: {
          request(input: RequestInfo | URL, init?: RequestInit) {
            if (input instanceof URL) {
              const proxy =
                "https://corsproxy.io/?" +
                encodeURIComponent(input.toString());
              return [proxy, init];
            } else if (typeof input === "string") {
              const proxy =
                "https://corsproxy.io/?" + encodeURIComponent(input);
              return [proxy, init];
            } else {
              throw new Error("Unexpected request input type");
            }
          },
        },
      }),
    [],
  );
  const [tweet, setTweet] = useState<Tweet | null>(null);

  useEffect(() => {
    async function getTweet() {
      const latestTweet = await scraper.getLatestTweet("twitter");
      if (latestTweet) {
        setTweet(latestTweet);
      }
    }

    getTweet();
  }, [scraper]);

  return (
    <main className="flex min-h-screen flex-col items-center justify-between p-24">
      {tweet?.text}
    </main>
  );
}
```

### Edge runtimes
This package currently uses [`cross-fetch`](https://www.npmjs.com/package/cross-fetch) as a portable `fetch`.
Edge runtimes such as CloudFlare Workers sometimes have `fetch` functions that behave differently from the web
standard, so you may need to override the `fetch` function the scraper uses. If so, a custom `fetch` can be
provided in the options:

```ts
const scraper = new Scraper({
  fetch: fetch
});
```

Note that this does not change the arguments passed to the function, or the expected return type. If the custom
`fetch` function produces runtime errors related to incorrect types, be sure to wrap it in a shim (not currently
supported directly by interceptors):

```ts
const scraper = new Scraper({
  fetch: (input, init) => {
    // Transform input and init into your function's expected types...
    return fetch(input, init)
      .then((res) => {
        // Transform res into a web-compliant response...
        return res;
      });
  },
});
```

## Contributing

### Setup
This project currently targets Node 16.x and uses Yarn for package management. [Corepack](https://nodejs.org/dist/latest-v16.x/docs/api/corepack.html)
is configured for this project, so you don't need to install a particular package manager version manually.

Just run `corepack enable` to turn on the shims, then run `yarn` to install the dependencies.

#### Basic scripts
* `yarn build`: Builds the project into the `dist` folder
* `yarn test`: Runs the package tests (see [Testing](#testing) first)

Run `yarn help` for general `yarn` usage information.

### Testing
This package includes unit tests for all major functionality. Given the speed at which Twitter's private API
changes, failing tests are to be expected.

```sh
yarn test
```

Before running tests, you should configure environment variables for authentication.

```
TWITTER_USERNAME=    # Account username
TWITTER_PASSWORD=    # Account password
TWITTER_EMAIL=       # Account email
TWITTER_COOKIES=     # JSON-serialized array of cookies of an authenticated session
PROXY_URL=           # HTTP(s) proxy for requests (optional)
```

### Commit message format
We use [Conventional Commits](https://www.conventionalcommits.org), and enforce this with precommit checks.
Please refer to the Git history for real examples of the commit message format.