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Skillsx-twitter-viral-radar

x-twitter-viral-radar

Security & auditing

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Updated 10-15 19:51

About this skill

X/Twitter Viral Radar

X/Twitter Viral Radar installs a user-owned cron job on this machine. Everything under ~/.viral-radar/ belongs to the user, and the scheduled runs execute plain local Python only — they never invoke an LLM, an agent, or this skill. Your job is to set that automation up correctly (or inspect, tune, and remove it), then get out of the way.

Files the automation uses:

Path Purpose
~/.viral-radar/viral-timeline.py The scan script (copied from scripts/viral-timeline-template.py)
~/.viral-radar/config.env Settings + webhook URL (mode 0600)
~/.viral-radar/state.sqlite3 Delivery log used for deduplication
~/.viral-radar/output/ One JSON evidence file per run
~/.viral-radar/logs/ viral-radar.log (stdout) and viral-radar.err (stderr)

Route by what the user needs:

  • Set it up → Install
  • "Is it working?" → Verify
  • Change schedule, thresholds, or destination → Update
  • Errors, missed alerts, duplicates, cron not firing → read references/troubleshooting.md
  • Uninstall → Removal

How detection works

Understanding the detector lets you explain alerts and tune thresholds with the user instead of treating the numbers as magic.

Each run fetches up to VIRAL_RADAR_LIMIT posts from the For You timeline and keeps those newer than VIRAL_RADAR_CUTOFF_HOURS. Each post gets an engagement score weighted toward signals that indicate genuine conversation:

engagement = likes + 3*retweets + 9*replies + 7*quotes + 5*bookmarks
normalized_score = engagement / views ^ VIRAL_RADAR_VIEW_EXPONENT

Dividing by views^exponent rewards posts whose engagement is high relative to reach — a fast-moving post from a small account outranks a celebrity post with passive views. A post alerts when its normalized score exceeds VIRAL_RADAR_THRESHOLD. Posts younger than VIRAL_RADAR_FRESH_HOURS are all eligible; if none qualify, only the single newest older qualifier is sent, so a backlog never floods the webhook.

A boost filter drops likely-astroturfed posts: suspicious amplification shape (retweets+quotes far outpacing replies, or quotes outpacing retweets) from an author under 20k followers.

Deduplication is by tweet ID in state.sqlite3 — a post alerts once, ever, until rows older than VIRAL_RADAR_RETENTION_DAYS are pruned.

Install

1. Confirm the plan

The confirmation message must state:

  • what setup creates (the file table above)
  • that it requires a Webcmd browser session logged into X
  • how often it will run
  • this exact sentence: "This setup adds a scheduled job, so on macOS you may need to grant permission for your terminal or agent to administer your computer."

Get their go-ahead before touching their machine.

2. Check prerequisites

The scan script shells out to Webcmd, which needs Node:

  • node --version — must be 20 or newer.
  • webcmd --version — must succeed. If Webcmd is missing, ask before running npm install -g @agentrhq/webcmd (it is a global install on their machine).
  • If your harness supports Webcmd's bundled skills (e.g. on Codex: webcmd skills install --provider codex), refresh them and load webcmd-usage before issuing live Webcmd commands. Otherwise rely on webcmd --help.

3. Verify X authentication

Run webcmd doctor, then webcmd twitter whoami -f json.

If whoami fails, walk the user through webcmd twitter login in a visible browser window, then rerun whoami. Browser-backed X commands still require the Webcmd/Cloak browser runtime to be installed and logged in. The scan script relies on Webcmd's default background behavior and already handles one stale-browser-context failure per run by restarting the Webcmd daemon and retrying.

4. Gather settings

  • Schedule: ask how often to scan; default is hourly (0 * * * *). Mention that the machine must be awake for cron to fire.
  • Detector values: offer the defaults (see Config keys) and only discuss individual knobs if the user wants changes.
  • Webhook destination (ask last, since it may require the user to leave and create one): Discord, Slack, or generic webhook. If they need help creating one, read references/notifications.md.

5. Create the runtime files

  1. Create ~/.viral-radar/ with output/ and logs/.
  2. Copy scripts/viral-timeline-template.py to ~/.viral-radar/viral-timeline.py and make it executable.
  3. Write ~/.viral-radar/config.env with mode 0600, containing the keys from Config keys and exactly one webhook URL (the one matching VIRAL_RADAR_DESTINATION).

The webhook URL is a credential: anyone holding it can post to the user's channel. Never print it, log it, or let it end up in evidence files, shell history you echo back, or chat output. If it leaks, tell the user to rotate it.

Securely collect the webhook on macOS

Do not ask the user to paste the webhook into chat, and do not read its value back after collecting it. On macOS, open a native hidden-input dialog and redirect the value directly to a protected temporary file:

umask 077
osascript -e 'text returned of (display dialog "Paste your webhook URL:" default answer "" with hidden answer buttons {"Cancel", "Save"} default button "Save" cancel button "Cancel")' > ~/.viral-radar/.webhook.tmp

If the user cancels, osascript exits non-zero — stop and ask how they want to proceed. Otherwise sanity-check the file without printing its contents (e.g. grep -qE '^https://' ~/.viral-radar/.webhook.tmp), then splice it into config.env and delete the temp file in commands that never echo the value:

printf 'VIRAL_RADAR_DISCORD_WEBHOOK=%s\n' "$(cat ~/.viral-radar/.webhook.tmp)" >> ~/.viral-radar/config.env
rm ~/.viral-radar/.webhook.tmp
chmod 600 ~/.viral-radar/config.env

(Substitute the key matching VIRAL_RADAR_DESTINATION.) On other platforms, or if the dialog cannot be shown, have the user open config.env in their own editor and paste the URL there themselves — never route it through the conversation.

6. Test exactly as cron will run

Cron runs with a minimal environment — no shell profile, near-empty PATH, different working directory. Most "worked when I set it up, silent ever since" failures come from testing under interactive conditions. So both test runs must use:

  • an absolute Python path
  • an absolute Webcmd path in VIRAL_RADAR_WEBCMD (from which webcmd)
  • explicit --config, --state, and --output-dir
  • stdout appended to logs/viral-radar.log, stderr to logs/viral-radar.err
  • a stripped PATH matching cron's, not your interactive shell's — Webcmd's binary starts with #!/usr/bin/env node, so it needs node resolvable on PATH even though you already gave it an absolute path in VIRAL_RADAR_WEBCMD. Find node's directory with which node and confirm it's on the PATH you're about to put in the crontab (step 7) — an absolute VIRAL_RADAR_WEBCMD alone is not enough. Run at least the --test-alert pass wrapped in env -i PATH=<the exact PATH you plan to put in cron> HOME="$HOME" ... so a missing node surfaces now instead of showing up as env: node: No such file or directory in viral-radar.err after the first real cron fire.

First run with --test-alert added: it sends a harmless "Viral Radar test alert" to the webhook. Continue only if it exits 0, state.sqlite3 exists, and an evidence JSON appeared in output/. Then run once without --test-alert for a full live scan and require exit 0 again.

7. Install the cron entry

Install or replace this managed block, preserving all unrelated crontab entries (the markers exist so update and removal can never clobber the user's other jobs). Set PATH explicitly to whatever you verified in step 6 — cron's default PATH is minimal and won't include the directory holding node, which Webcmd needs to even start:

# viral-radar begin
PATH=<dir containing node>:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin
<schedule> cd ~/.viral-radar && <python> ~/.viral-radar/viral-timeline.py --config ~/.viral-radar/config.env --state ~/.viral-radar/state.sqlite3 --output-dir ~/.viral-radar/output >> ~/.viral-radar/logs/viral-radar.log 2>> ~/.viral-radar/logs/viral-radar.err
# viral-radar end

Verify with crontab -l, then report to the user: the schedule, the runtime directory, where config/logs/evidence live, and how removal works.

Verify

When the user asks whether Viral Radar is working:

  1. crontab -l — confirm the managed block exists and read its schedule.
  2. Check the newest file in ~/.viral-radar/output/ — its timestamped name tells you when the last successful run finished, and its selected / delivered fields tell you what it found.
  3. Tail ~/.viral-radar/logs/viral-radar.err for recent failures.
  4. If freshness or errors look wrong, or the user reports missed/duplicate alerts, continue in references/troubleshooting.md.

An empty selected array is not a failure — it means nothing on the timeline crossed the threshold that run.

Update

  • Detector values or destination: edit ~/.viral-radar/config.env (keep mode 0600). The script rereads it every run, so no cron change is needed. After changing the destination or webhook, rerun the --test-alert command from Install step 6.
  • Schedule: rewrite only the managed cron block with the new schedule, preserving everything outside the markers. Verify with crontab -l.
  • Script: if this skill ships a newer template, re-copy it over ~/.viral-radar/viral-timeline.py and rerun both Install step 6 tests.

Config keys

Write these keys in config.env. Only the webhook key matching VIRAL_RADAR_DESTINATION should have a value.

VIRAL_RADAR_DESTINATION=discord
VIRAL_RADAR_DISCORD_WEBHOOK=...
VIRAL_RADAR_SLACK_WEBHOOK=
VIRAL_RADAR_GENERIC_WEBHOOK=
VIRAL_RADAR_WEBCMD=/absolute/path/to/webcmd
VIRAL_RADAR_LIMIT=80
VIRAL_RADAR_CUTOFF_HOURS=6
VIRAL_RADAR_FRESH_HOURS=2
VIRAL_RADAR_THRESHOLD=100
VIRAL_RADAR_VIEW_EXPONENT=0.25
VIRAL_RADAR_RETENTION_DAYS=30
Key Default Meaning
LIMIT 80 Timeline posts fetched per scan
CUTOFF_HOURS 6 Ignore posts older than this
FRESH_HOURS 2 Posts younger than this all compete; older qualifiers send one at most
THRESHOLD 100 Minimum normalized score to alert — raise for fewer alerts, lower for more
VIEW_EXPONENT 0.25 View normalization strength — higher favors low-view fast movers
RETENTION_DAYS 30 Prune dedup rows and evidence files after this many days

Removal

  1. Remove only the managed crontab block between # viral-radar begin and # viral-radar end, leaving every other entry intact. Verify with crontab -l.
  2. Ask before deleting ~/.viral-radar/ — it holds the user's delivery history and their webhook URL. If they keep the directory, remind them config.env still contains the webhook credential.