Creating a self-updating GitHub README using rtweet and GitHub Actions

zhiiiyang · July 21, 2020, 4:32am

rOpenSci package or resource used*

What did you do?

After GitHub allows users to host their own README file on the profile page, people started to share many awesome README examples. Inspired by this tweet where Simon William used it to share his updates from blogs and commits, I created a README updating my latest tweet instead of having a static one by doing the following actions:

Use rtweet to get my latest tweet.
Use tweetrmd and webshot2 to turn the tweet into a screenshot.
The entire process is deployed on GitHub using GitHub Actions templates from my friend Malcolm Barrett.

URL or code snippet for your use case*

github.com

zhiiiyang/zhiiiyang/blob/af2921e2fe01cd59cab9138907f8da37ceabcb1d/script.R

library(tweetrmd)
library(rtweet)

lasttweet_token <- function() {
  create_token(
    "rtweet_tokens_zy",
    consumer_key = Sys.getenv("CONSUMER_KEY"),
    consumer_secret = Sys.getenv("CONSUMER_SECRET"),
    access_token = Sys.getenv("ACCESS_TOKEN"),
    access_secret = Sys.getenv("ACCESS_SECRET"),
    set_renv = FALSE
  )
}

handle <- "zhiiiyang"
recent_tweets <- get_timeline(handle, n = 1, token = lasttweet_token())

tmpimg <- "tweet.png"
tweet_screenshot(
  tweet_url(handle, recent_tweets$status_id),

This file has been truncated. show original

Image

Sector

academic

Field(s) of application

Doesn’t really fall into the typical fields. How about professional development?

Twitter handle

@zhiiiyang

Topic		Replies	Views
A Twitter bot with rtweet, Mapbox and GitHub Actions UseCases package , maps , usecase , rtweet , github-actions	2	1620	October 25, 2020
rOpenSci \| Upgrading rtweet Blog	0	274	July 21, 2022
rtweet save_as_csv failing General Q&A rtweet	3	1234	September 3, 2022
rtweet update 1.0.2 Package Use Questions rtweet	4	551	August 1, 2022
Easily analyzing tweets using rtweet UseCases package , rtweet	0	1169	May 12, 2021