Search X (Twitter) users by keyword, with bio and follower counts
TL;DR
About
X's People tab matches your words against names, handles and bios, which makes it good for finding people who call themselves embedded Rust developers. The catch is that the tab gives you a scrolling column of cards. Each matching account becomes one row instead, in the order X shows it rather than by follower count, with follower, following and post counts as plain numbers and the website already unwrapped from X's t.co link, so it opens the person's blog or company page. Links typed inside the bio stay as t.co, though. A developer advocate might ask for 60 accounts on "embedded rust", drop anyone under 200 posts in total, sort by followers, then check the top 25 with get_user_posts, because post count is lifetime and won't show who has gone quiet. Ask for more accounts than X will serve and you get fewer: the run gives up after two scrolls that bring nothing new.
Input
query requiredSearch keyword or phrase to match against account names/handles/bios, e.g. 'AI safety researcher'. Same raw query grammar as X's People search tab.
count optionalMax accounts to return. Scrolls until count is met or results dry up. Default 20, max 100.
Default: 20Output
count requiredNumber of accounts returned. 0 is a first-class outcome (no matches).
query requiredusers requiredcomplete requiredTrue when X showed the end of the results and every account it sent is returned. False when more may exist: count was reached or X stopped loading.
Example output
Shape only: placeholder values generated from the output schema, not a real run.
{
"count": 3,
"query": "…",
"users": [
{
"bio": "…",
"name": "Example",
"handle": "…",
"tweets": 3,
"user_id": "abc123",
"website": "…",
"location": "…",
"verified": true,
"followers": 1200,
"following": 3
}
],
"complete": true
}FAQ
X (Twitter) search unofficial API: search tweets, no API key
Search X (Twitter) for tweets with every X search operator, from the Top tab (a ranked sample, the default) or the Latest tab (chronological), picked by the tab arg. Returns per tweet a canonical record: id, url, author {id, handle, name}, text, created_at, lang, likes, retweets, replies, quotes, bookmarks, views, is_retweet, is_quote, plus followers (the author's follower count, a search-only enrichment), and the top-level query and count. Top is a ranked sample, not exhaustive.
Get a tweet and its replies on X (Twitter)
Get a tweet on X (Twitter) by URL, with the conversation around it: `tweet` (the post itself) and `replies` (every other post of its conversation on the page: the thread above it when it is a reply, and the replies below; use in_reply_to to rebuild the thread). Each post has id, url, author, text, created_at, lang, counts, in_reply_to and quoted_tweet. With count, it loads more replies until it has count or X reaches the end. complete is true only when X reached the end and left no folded replies (Show replies, hidden or probable-spam sections), which this script does not open. A deleted or unavailable tweet is an error. Requires being signed in to X.
X (Twitter) profile unofficial API: get a user's bio and followers
Look up an X (Twitter) user's profile by handle. Returns handle, user_id, name, bio, location, website, joined, followers_count, following_count, is_verified, is_self, is_following, follows_you. Counts are exact integers. bio and website carry the real destination URLs, with X's shortlinks resolved. is_following is null on your own profile. Any of is_self, is_following, follows_you and is_verified is null when X does not say. Requires being signed in to X; a missing or suspended account is an error that says which.