Retool API Guide: Posting Tweets via a Retool App

Setting Up Authentication and Access Tokens

First, you'll need to set up authentication and access tokens. These will give your app the necessary permissions to make requests on behalf of users who connect their Twitter accounts.

Begin by creating an account, project, and app within the Twitter Developer Portal. You can do this using your Twitter account.

Next, obtain the keys needed for authentication and authorization from the "Keys and Tokens" tab in your Twitter app settings. We'll use OAuth2 for this integration, so we'll have to enable it first.

Enable OAuth 2 authentication in the "User Authentication Settings" section under the Settings tab of your app. Projects & Apps > Click the App > Go to Settings Tab. Scroll down and you’ll see "User Authentication Settings"

In this section, add the Callback URI/Redirect URL and the domain that will have access to the app. As you can on the image below, I already added the Callback URL Retool provides when using OAuth 2.0 authentication. You can also fill out optional fields like Organization Name, URL, Terms of Service, and Privacy Policy.

We then save our Client ID and Secret for use later.

Setting Up the Resource Connection in Retool

Now, let’s set up the resource connection in your Retool app for the Twitter app you created. The base URL of the Twitter API is:

<https://api.twitter.com/2>

Configure the headers of this resource to include the Authorization property with the value as Bearer OAUTH2_TOKEN.

Scroll down and select OAuth 2.0 as the authentication method. Retool will provide a callback URL to use as the redirect URI in the Twitter Developer Portal. You’ll also need to fill out fields like Authorization URL, Access Token URL, Client ID, and Client Secret. Additionally, we should add the required parameters that Retool doesn’t automatically include, such as the code_challenge and code_challenge_method.

As for the scopes, the endpoints we will include in this guide requires the scopes:

tweet.read tweet.write users.read

Twitter Authorization URL:

<https://twitter.com/i/oauth2/authorize>


With parameters:

<https://twitter.com/i/oauth2/authorize?code_challenge=challenge&code_challenge_method=plain>


Do the same for the Access Token URL:

<https://api.twitter.com/2/oauth2/token>


With parameters:

<https://api.twitter.com/2/oauth2/token?code_verifier=challenge>


In these URLs, code_challenge can be any string you choose, and the method is plain. The value of code_challenge will also be used as the value of code_verifier in the Access Token URL.

After entering the Client ID and Client Secret (saved from your Twitter Developer Portal setup), specify the scopes required for granting permissions.

Now, test the connection with the Connect button at the bottom of the page.

Upon successful connection, you’ll be redirected back to your Retool app with a “Connected” message. You can also check the token status.

Now, let’s hit some Twitter endpoints using this resource connection!

Testing the Connection and Posting a Tweet

To test a simple GET request, use the /users/me endpoint.

It should have this response when I connect using my twitter account.

{
    "data": {
        "id": "1513961167018147840",
        "name": "lander audian",
        "username": "AudianLander"
    }
}

Next, try posting a tweet via the /tweets endpoint.

This should use the POST request method. Here is a sample request body:

   {
	   "text": "Test tweet from a web app"
   }

Sample of response and how it would look like in my twitter:

{
		"data": {
			"id": "1445880548472328192",
			"text": "Test tweet from a web app"
		}
}

Great, You've successfully integrated the Twitter API to post tweets from within a Retool app. Now you can use this functionality in any part of your Retool app.

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