Completely rewrites the news command to fetch from multiple Explore tabs
(For You, News, Sports, Entertainment) using GenericTimelineById GraphQL
API instead of just the ExplorePage initialTimeline. This delivers 15+
AI-curated headlines instead of 3, a 5x improvement in content discovery.
Key Changes:
- Add GenericTimelineById query ID support with auto-refresh capability
- Implement multi-tab fetching with cross-tab headline deduplication
- Add CLI flags for granular tab filtering (--for-you, --news-only,
--sports, --entertainment, --trending-only)
- Fetch from 4 tabs by default (excludes trending to reduce noise)
- Add early stopping optimization when count is reached
- Handle tab-level errors gracefully without failing entire request
Implementation:
- Added TIMELINE_IDS constant with base64 timeline identifiers
- Created fetchTimelineTab() method for GenericTimelineById requests
- Created parseTimelineTabItems() for new response structure
- Removed old parseNewsItems() and extractNewsItemsFromInstructions()
- Updated all 7 tests to mock GenericTimelineById responses
API Changes:
- NewsFetchOptions: Added `tabs?: ExploreTab[]` option
- ExploreTab type exported for library consumers
- Backward compatible - existing code continues to work
Documentation:
- Added comprehensive "News & Trending" section with examples
- Updated command reference with all new flags
- Added library usage examples with tab filtering
- Updated JSON schema documentation
Testing:
- All 268 tests passing
- Real-world verified: fetches 15+ AI headlines across tabs
- Tab filtering verified: --sports, --entertainment, etc all work
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.5 <[email protected]>
Add comprehensive news/trending feature that fetches AI-generated news
headlines from Twitter's "For You" page. This feature specifically
targets the AI-curated news items that Twitter displays under "Today's
News" section, not generic trending hashtags.
- Uses Twitter's ExplorePage GraphQL API endpoint to access the Explore
page timeline data where AI headlines are located
- AI headlines are identified by the explicit `is_ai_trend: true` flag
in the API response
- Fallback heuristic detection for full-sentence headlines (5+ words)
with "News" or time indicators in social context
- Headlines are found in "stories-*" modules within the initialTimeline
structure under a "Today's News" header
- Follows the existing mixin pattern (withNews) for composability
- Supports both AI-only filtering and mixed trending/AI results
- `bird news` - Fetch news and trending topics (mixed results)
- `bird news --ai-only` - Fetch ONLY AI-curated headlines
- `bird news -n <count>` - Limit number of results
- `bird news --json` - Output as JSON
- `bird news --json-full` - Include raw API response
- `bird news --with-tweets` - Enrich with related tweets
- `bird trending` - Alias for news command
- AI headlines are clearly marked with "AI · " category prefix
- Automatic deduplication of duplicate headlines
- Rich formatting with category, time, post count, and URLs
- src/commands/news.ts - CLI command implementation
- src/lib/twitter-client-news.ts - Core news fetching functionality
- tests/commands.news.test.ts - Command validation tests (7 tests)
- tests/twitter-client-coverage.news.test.ts - API coverage tests (7 tests)
- README.md - Added documentation for news command
- src/cli/program.ts - Registered news command
- src/lib/index.ts - Exported news-related types
- src/lib/twitter-client.ts - Integrated withNews mixin
- src/lib/query-ids.json - Added ExplorePage query ID
- src/lib/twitter-client-constants.ts - Added ExplorePage constant
- src/lib/twitter-client-features.ts - Added buildExploreFeatures()
- scripts/update-query-ids.ts - Added ExplorePage to update script
- All 268 existing tests continue to pass
- Added 14 new tests covering command validation and API functionality
- Tested with real Twitter data confirming AI headline detection
- All TypeScript compilation and linting checks pass
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.5 <[email protected]>
Peter Steinberger