Account activity only getting my notifications

[jimfenton]

I’m testing an extension to a Go library (anaconda) to use the Account Activity API in sandbox mode. My app has been approved for the Account Activity API.

I have successfully registered and CRC-validated my webhook. I asked for a list of subscriptions, and found that my own user ID has a subscription on the webhook. I’m not sure if I created that subscription at some point in testing, or if webhooks create that subscription as a default.

I had expected to see fairly frequent activity (as I did with the streaming API) any time one of the accounts I follow tweets. But I’m not seeing those; only my own tweets, replies to me, follow notifications, and the like. Is there something special I need to do to get callbacks for tweets I would normally see on my home menu?

[andypiper]

any time one of the accounts I follow tweets

This is not part of the Account Activity API. You can see the kinds of event messages that the AA API returns here. There’s no equivalent for “accounts you follow” sending events to the webhook - that’s not what the AA API was designed for. Ultimately the API relates to events for or from the subscribed account; but it does not include home timeline Tweet inbounds.

It sounds as though this is working as designed and intended.

[jimfenton]

Perhaps I misinterpreted tweet_create_events then. The Account Activity API was promoted as the replacement for the now-subset Streaming API. Is there then no equivalent functionality to obtain the timeline other than polling for new tweets?

[andypiper]

That is correct. The Account Activity API is a partial - server-side - replacement for account related notifications. It does not include home timeline events. This is exactly as described in the documentation and blog post (see “Resources for developers” in the blog post).

[jimfenton]

This is disappointing. I think I have read all of the Account Activity API documentation (and I don’t consider the blog to be documentation), and I have found no clear statement that home timeline tweets aren’t included. It all depends on how one interprets the word “to” in the tweet_create_events message type: “actions are taken by or to the subscription user”. It would be far better if the documentation explicitly said that it it’s a partial replacement for the streaming API and called out the lack of home timeline tweets, even if it only affects 1% of apps.

I need to switch approaches and stop wasting my time on this (including the Go anaconda library support). You may close this issue.

[andypiper]