The Twitter Ruby Gem

The Twitter Ruby Gem provides a Ruby interface to the X (Twitter) API v1.1.

For new projects, or if you need API v2 support, use the X gem as a more modern alternative. It supports both API v1.1 and API v2.

💖 Sponsoring

Open source maintenance takes real time and effort. By sponsoring development, you help us:

1. 🛠 Maintain the library: Keeping it up-to-date and secure.
2. 🌈 Add new features: Enhancements that make your life easier.
3. 💬 Provide support: Faster responses to issues and feature requests.

⭐️ Bonus: Sponsors will get priority support and influence over the project roadmap. We will also list your name or your company’s logo on our GitHub page.

Building and maintaining an open-source project like this takes a considerable amount of time and effort. Your sponsorship can help sustain this project. Even a small monthly donation makes a huge difference!

Thanks for considering sponsorship. Together we can make the X gem even better!

🤑 Sponsor today!

Announcements

You should follow @gem on X for announcements and updates about this library.

Configuration

Twitter API v1.1 requests require OAuth credentials, so you'll need to register an app in the X developer portal first.

After creating an app, you'll have a consumer key/secret pair and an access token/secret pair. Configure these before making requests.

You can pass configuration options as a block to Twitter::REST::Client.new.

client = Twitter::REST::Client.new do |config|
  config.consumer_key        = "YOUR_CONSUMER_KEY"
  config.consumer_secret     = "YOUR_CONSUMER_SECRET"
  config.access_token        = "YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN"
  config.access_token_secret = "YOUR_ACCESS_SECRET"
end

Usage Examples

After configuring a client, you can do the following things.

Tweet (as the authenticated user)

client.update("I'm tweeting with @gem!")

Follow a user (by screen name or user ID)

client.follow("gem")
client.follow(213747670)

Fetch a user (by screen name or user ID)

client.user("gem")
client.user(213747670)

Fetch a cursored list of followers (by screen name, user ID, or the authenticated user)

client.followers("gem")
client.followers(213747670)
client.followers

Fetch a cursored list of friends (by screen name, user ID, or the authenticated user)

client.friends("gem")
client.friends(213747670)
client.friends

Fetch the timeline of Tweets by a user

client.user_timeline("gem")
client.user_timeline(213747670)

Fetch the home timeline

client.home_timeline

Fetch the mentions timeline

client.mentions_timeline

Fetch a Tweet by ID

client.status(27558893223)

Search recent matching Tweets

client.search("to:justinbieber marry me", result_type: "recent").take(3).map do |tweet|
  "#{tweet.user.screen_name}: #{tweet.text}"
end

Find a Japanese-language Tweet tagged #ruby (excluding retweets)

client.search("#ruby -rt", lang: "ja").first.text

For more usage examples, see the full documentation.

Streaming

This gem includes streaming clients for legacy API v1.1 streaming endpoints. Endpoint availability and access requirements depend on your developer account.

Configuration works just like Twitter::REST::Client

client = Twitter::Streaming::Client.new do |config|
  config.consumer_key        = "YOUR_CONSUMER_KEY"
  config.consumer_secret     = "YOUR_CONSUMER_SECRET"
  config.access_token        = "YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN"
  config.access_token_secret = "YOUR_ACCESS_SECRET"
end

Stream a random sample of Tweets

client.sample do |object|
  puts object.text if object.is_a?(Twitter::Tweet)
end

Stream mentions of coffee or tea

topics = ["coffee", "tea"]
client.filter(track: topics.join(",")) do |object|
  puts object.text if object.is_a?(Twitter::Tweet)
end

Stream Tweets, events, and direct messages for the authenticated user

client.user do |object|
  case object
  when Twitter::Tweet
    puts "It's a tweet!"
  when Twitter::DirectMessage
    puts "It's a direct message!"
  when Twitter::Streaming::StallWarning
    warn "Falling behind!"
  end
end

An object may be one of the following:

• Twitter::Tweet
• Twitter::DirectMessage
• Twitter::Streaming::DeletedTweet
• Twitter::Streaming::Event
• Twitter::Streaming::FriendList
• Twitter::Streaming::StallWarning

Copyright

Copyright (c) 2006-2026 Erik Berlin, John Nunemaker, Wynn Netherland, Steve Richert, Steve Agalloco. See LICENSE for details.