Bird CLI

Bird CLI

Overview

Use this skill to operate Twitter/X through the local bird CLI (bird 0.8.0). Prefer JSON output (--json) for machine-readable processing, then summarize for the user.

Capability Map (from bird --help)

• Identity/auth checks: check, whoami, query-ids
• Read single tweet: read, shorthand bird <tweet-id-or-url> [--json]
• Read conversations: replies, thread
• Discovery: search, mentions, news/trending, home, user-tweets
• Library/account views: bookmarks, likes, lists, list-timeline, following, followers, about
• Write actions: tweet, reply, unbookmark, follow, unfollow

Load detailed command notes from references/commands.md when choosing flags.

Workflow

1. Preflight

1. Confirm binary: command -v bird && bird --version
2. Check credentials: bird check
3. Verify account context: bird whoami

If credential checks fail, report the exact error and stop before any publish flow starts. These checks are mandatory before draft/review/post steps.

2. Read-first defaults

Use read commands by default unless the user explicitly asks to modify account state.

• Start with narrow fetch sizes (-n 10 or -n 20)
• Prefer --json for parsing and reliable summarization
• Use --cursor/--max-pages for controlled pagination
• Avoid broad scraping flags unless explicitly requested

3. Write actions (state-changing)

Treat these as state-changing commands:

• tweet
• reply
• unbookmark
• follow
• unfollow

Run these commands only through this sequence:

1. Draft: produce the exact text or action plan.
2. Review: show the draft/command target and request explicit confirmation (confirm/post).
3. Post: execute only after explicit confirmation and return resulting IDs/URLs.

Until confirmation arrives, remain read-only even if the intent seems obvious. If intent is unclear, ask once before executing.

4. Safety and rate-risk guidance

• list-timeline --all warns account ban risk in CLI help; do not use unless user explicitly requests it.
• Prefer bounded pagination (--max-pages) over unbounded --all.
• Keep timeouts explicit for long jobs (--timeout <ms>).
• Treat the review step as the write authorization guardrail; do not skip it.

Output Patterns

• For exploration requests: return concise highlights + important IDs/URLs.
• For monitoring requests: return counts, top items, and next cursor if pagination remains.
• For publish requests: include the command result and posted tweet ID/URL when available.

Auth and Config Notes

Bird supports credentials via:

• direct cookies: --auth-token, --ct0
• browser profile extraction: --chrome-profile, --chrome-profile-dir, --firefox-profile, --cookie-source
• config files: ~/.config/bird/config.json5 and ./.birdrc.json5

Useful env vars:

• BIRD_TIMEOUT_MS
• BIRD_COOKIE_TIMEOUT_MS
• BIRD_QUOTE_DEPTH
• NO_COLOR

Maintenance

If Bird is upgraded, regenerate command help snapshot:

bash scripts/capture_help_snapshot.sh

This refreshes references/help-snapshot.txt.