Nitterbot for Matrix

A simplistic Matrix bot for Twitter-backed watchalongs. It posts statuses from Nitter.

Available on:
Github - Gitlab - Sourcehut Project/Repo

How it works

Every five seconds, the bot polls new tweets from a given Twitter list and sends the Nitter version (unshortened URLs and all URLs rewritten to nitter.net) to a given Matrix room. If a hashtag is also provided, only tweets containing the hashtag (regardless of case) will be sent.

Install

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/refragable/matrix-nitterbot.git
cd matrix-tweetalong-bot
# Create a virtualenv
python3 -m venv env
. env/bin/activate
# Install the dependencies
pip install -r requirements.txt
# When you're finished
deactivate

Configure

Copy config.sample.yaml into config.yaml. This sample configuration includes comments documenting how to configure the bot.

Run

It is best to run this bot in a screen/tmux session on a server. That way it will run 24/7.

. env/bin/activate
python3 main.py

Sample Systemd Service

A Systemd service will run the bot automatically on (re)boot and restart it if the process dies. This requires an account with sudo permissions.

Create a shell script start.sh:

#!/bin/bash
cd <path to nitterbot directory>
. env/bin/activate
python3 main.py

Then create the following nitterbot.service file:

[Unit]
Description=Nitterbot for Matrix
After=network.target
StartLimitIntervalSec=0
[Service]
Type=simple
User=<user>
Group=<user>
WorkingDirectory=/home/user/nitterbot/
ExecStart=/home/user/nitterbot/start.sh
Restart=always
RestartSec=5
RuntimeMaxSec=604800
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Then run the following to install the service file:

1. sudo cp nitterbot.service /etc/systemd/system/
2. sudo systemctl enable nitterbot.service
3. sudo systemctl start nitterbot.service

Credits

Brendan Abolivier - Matrix Tweetalong bot

Ilya Pupko - TwitterStatic for the Nitter parsing.