xurl — Agent Skill Reference

xurl is a CLI tool for the X API. It supports both shortcut commands (human/agent‑friendly one‑liners) and raw curl‑style access to any v2 endpoint. All commands return JSON to stdout.

Prerequisites

Before using any command you must be authenticated. Run xurl auth status to check. If not authenticated, set up one of:

bash

# Option 1 — OAuth 2.0 (user‑context, most common)
export CLIENT_ID=your_client_id
export CLIENT_SECRET=your_client_secret
xurl auth oauth2

# Option 2 — OAuth 1.0a
xurl auth oauth1 \
  --consumer-key KEY --consumer-secret SECRET \
  --access-token TOKEN --token-secret SECRET

# Option 3 — App‑only bearer token
xurl auth app --bearer-token TOKEN

Tokens are persisted to ~/.xurl. Once authenticated, every command below will auto‑attach the right Authorization header.

Quick Reference

Action	Command
Post	`xurl post "Hello world!"`
Reply	`xurl reply POST_ID "Nice post!"`
Quote	`xurl quote POST_ID "My take"`
Delete a post	`xurl delete POST_ID`
Read a post	`xurl read POST_ID`
Search posts	`xurl search "QUERY" -n 10`
Who am I	`xurl whoami`
Look up a user	`xurl user @handle`
Home timeline	`xurl timeline -n 20`
Mentions	`xurl mentions -n 10`
Like	`xurl like POST_ID`
Unlike	`xurl unlike POST_ID`
Repost	`xurl repost POST_ID`
Undo repost	`xurl unrepost POST_ID`
Bookmark	`xurl bookmark POST_ID`
Remove bookmark	`xurl unbookmark POST_ID`
List bookmarks	`xurl bookmarks -n 10`
List likes	`xurl likes -n 10`
Follow	`xurl follow @handle`
Unfollow	`xurl unfollow @handle`
List following	`xurl following -n 20`
List followers	`xurl followers -n 20`
Block	`xurl block @handle`
Unblock	`xurl unblock @handle`
Mute	`xurl mute @handle`
Unmute	`xurl unmute @handle`
Send DM	`xurl dm @handle "message"`
List DMs	`xurl dms -n 10`
Upload media	`xurl media upload path/to/file.mp4`
Media status	`xurl media status MEDIA_ID`

Post IDs vs URLs: Anywhere POST_ID appears above you can also paste a full post URL (e.g. https://x.com/user/status/1234567890) — xurl extracts the ID automatically.

Usernames: Leading @ is optional. @elonmusk and elonmusk both work.

Command Details

Posting

bash

# Simple post
xurl post "Hello world!"

# Post with media (upload first, then attach)
xurl media upload photo.jpg          # → note the media_id from response
xurl post "Check this out" --media-id MEDIA_ID

# Multiple media
xurl post "Thread pics" --media-id 111 --media-id 222

# Reply to a post (by ID or URL)
xurl reply 1234567890 "Great point!"
xurl reply https://x.com/user/status/1234567890 "Agreed!"

# Reply with media
xurl reply 1234567890 "Look at this" --media-id MEDIA_ID

# Quote a post
xurl quote 1234567890 "Adding my thoughts"

# Delete your own post
xurl delete 1234567890

Reading

bash

# Read a single post (returns author, text, metrics, entities)
xurl read 1234567890
xurl read https://x.com/user/status/1234567890

# Search recent posts (default 10 results)
xurl search "golang"
xurl search "from:elonmusk" -n 20
xurl search "#buildinpublic lang:en" -n 15

User Info

bash

# Your own profile
xurl whoami

# Look up any user
xurl user elonmusk
xurl user @XDevelopers

Timelines & Mentions

bash

# Home timeline (reverse chronological)
xurl timeline
xurl timeline -n 25

# Your mentions
xurl mentions
xurl mentions -n 20

Engagement

bash

# Like / unlike
xurl like 1234567890
xurl unlike 1234567890

# Repost / undo
xurl repost 1234567890
xurl unrepost 1234567890

# Bookmark / remove
xurl bookmark 1234567890
xurl unbookmark 1234567890

# List your bookmarks / likes
xurl bookmarks -n 20
xurl likes -n 20

Social Graph

bash

# Follow / unfollow
xurl follow @XDevelopers
xurl unfollow @XDevelopers

# List who you follow / your followers
xurl following -n 50
xurl followers -n 50

# List another user's following/followers
xurl following --of elonmusk -n 20
xurl followers --of elonmusk -n 20

# Block / unblock
xurl block @spammer
xurl unblock @spammer

# Mute / unmute
xurl mute @annoying
xurl unmute @annoying

Direct Messages

bash

# Send a DM
xurl dm @someuser "Hey, saw your post!"

# List recent DM events
xurl dms
xurl dms -n 25

Media Upload

bash

# Upload a file (auto‑detects type for images/videos)
xurl media upload photo.jpg
xurl media upload video.mp4

# Specify type and category explicitly
xurl media upload --media-type image/jpeg --category tweet_image photo.jpg

# Check processing status (videos need server‑side processing)
xurl media status MEDIA_ID
xurl media status --wait MEDIA_ID    # poll until done

# Full workflow: upload then post
xurl media upload meme.png           # response includes media id
xurl post "lol" --media-id MEDIA_ID

Global Flags

These flags work on every shortcut command:

Flag	Short	Description
`--auth`		Force auth type: `oauth1`, `oauth2`, or `app`
`--username`	`-u`	Which OAuth2 account to use (if you have multiple)
`--verbose`	`-v`	Print full request/response headers
`--trace`	`-t`	Add `X-B3-Flags: 1` trace header

Raw API Access

The shortcut commands cover the most common operations. For anything else, use xurl's raw curl‑style mode — it works with any X API v2 endpoint:

bash

# GET request (default)
xurl /2/users/me

# POST with JSON body
xurl -X POST /2/tweets -d '{"text":"Hello world!"}'

# PUT, PATCH, DELETE
xurl -X DELETE /2/tweets/1234567890

# Custom headers
xurl -H "Content-Type: application/json" /2/some/endpoint

# Force streaming mode
xurl -s /2/tweets/search/stream

# Full URLs also work
xurl https://api.x.com/2/users/me

Streaming

Streaming endpoints are auto‑detected. Known streaming endpoints include:

•/2/tweets/search/stream
•/2/tweets/sample/stream
•/2/tweets/sample10/stream

You can force streaming on any endpoint with -s:

bash

xurl -s /2/some/endpoint

Output Format

All commands return JSON to stdout, pretty‑printed with syntax highlighting. The output structure matches the X API v2 response format. A typical response looks like:

json

{
  "data": {
    "id": "1234567890",
    "text": "Hello world!"
  }
}

Errors are also returned as JSON:

json

{
  "errors": [
    {
      "message": "Not authorized",
      "code": 403
    }
  ]
}

Common Workflows

Post with an image

bash

# 1. Upload the image
xurl media upload photo.jpg
# 2. Copy the media_id from the response, then post
xurl post "Check out this photo!" --media-id MEDIA_ID

Reply to a conversation

bash

# 1. Read the post to understand context
xurl read https://x.com/user/status/1234567890
# 2. Reply
xurl reply 1234567890 "Here are my thoughts..."

Search and engage

bash

# 1. Search for relevant posts
xurl search "topic of interest" -n 10
# 2. Like an interesting one
xurl like POST_ID_FROM_RESULTS
# 3. Reply to it
xurl reply POST_ID_FROM_RESULTS "Great point!"

Check your activity

bash

# See who you are
xurl whoami
# Check your mentions
xurl mentions -n 20
# Check your timeline
xurl timeline -n 20

Error Handling

•Non‑zero exit code on any error.
•API errors are printed as JSON to stdout (so you can still parse them).
•Auth errors suggest re‑running xurl auth oauth2 or checking your tokens.
•If a command requires your user ID (like, repost, bookmark, follow, etc.), xurl will automatically fetch it via /2/users/me. If that fails, you'll see an auth error.

Notes

•Rate limits: The X API enforces rate limits per endpoint. If you get a 429 error, wait and retry. Write endpoints (post, reply, like, repost) have stricter limits than read endpoints.
•Scopes: OAuth 2.0 tokens are requested with broad scopes. If you get a 403 on a specific action, your token may lack the required scope — re‑run xurl auth oauth2 to get a fresh token.
•Token refresh: OAuth 2.0 tokens auto‑refresh when expired. No manual intervention needed.
•Multiple accounts: You can authenticate multiple OAuth 2.0 accounts and switch between them with --username / -u.