PRE-ALPHA
How-to documentation being progressively updated


Whats is tweetbot?
Just another configurable twitter bot written in Python

Why was it created?
Due to workpressure and general lethargy, tweeting may start to feel more like a chore.
Tweetbot was created to take this burden away from you, this is a configurable bot which allows you to specify a list of topic which interests you.
Then the bot reaches out to "HackerNews" to fetch the top news, filter out the topics of interests and tweet them out, even creating appropriate "Hashtags" to be attached.
The bot also uses url shortening service provided by Bitly to make sure the tweet remains under the specified character limit on twitter.

Limitations:
- Currently only news source available is HackerNews, and is tightly integrated in the codebase.
- News is fetched once a day, is configurable.
- Can only tweet on your account, integration of stream for active listening of your twitter feed is not available.

How to use?

- Prerequisits:
  - Python 3.x (tested on python 3.7.x and 3.9)
  - Pip for installation of third party libraries
  - Third party packages like hackernews, bitlyshortner, scheduler etc
  - Virtualenv (optional) (I use virtualenv wrapper personally)
  - Developer account for Bitly
  - Twitter dev API token and secrets

- Get up and running:
    - Clone the repo
    - install required packages using the following command pip3 install -r requirements.txt
    - create a .env file at project root diretory
    - Add the following lines
        TWITTER_CONSUMER_KEY=<key>
        TWITTER_CONSUMER_SECRET=<secret>
        TWITTER_ACCESS_TOKEN=<token>
        TWITTER_ACCESS_TOKEN_SECRET=<token secret>
    - Replace values with your credentials from twitter dev portal
    - to run the code, from projects root directory on terminal:
        python main.py