Threads Image Poster

Automates Threads posts by selecting a random PNG from an OCI Object Storage bucket, uploading it through the official Threads Graph API, and deleting the image from the bucket after a successful post.

Prerequisites

• Python 3.10+
• OCI credentials (via ~/.oci/config) with access to THREADS_BUCKET
• Threads Graph API access token with publish permissions
• Claude API key with access to the latest vision-capable model (default: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929)

Setup

1. Install dependencies:

   python -m venv .venv
   . .venv/bin/activate
   pip install -r requirements.txt

2. Copy the sample environment file and fill in your values:

   cp .env.example .env

3. Ensure your OCI profile can list objects, create pre-authenticated requests, and delete objects in the target bucket.
4. Provide your Anthropic Claude API key in the environment so captions can be generated automatically.

Usage

Run the poster manually:

python -m threads_poster

The script:

1. Loads configuration and credentials from the environment
2. Lists all PNG files in the configured OCI bucket/prefix
3. Picks a random image and creates a pre-authenticated URL
4. Sends the image to Claude Vision to craft a one-line caption that reflects the quote
5. Creates and publishes the Threads post with the generated caption
6. Deletes the posted image from OCI once the upload succeeds

Logs are printed to stdout with timestamps to simplify automation and alerting.

Scheduling

cron/threads_poster.cron contains a ready-to-import crontab entry that runs the script every hour from 09:30 to 21:30 IST (04:00-16:00 UTC):

crontab cron/threads_poster.cron

Adjust the repository path or Python interpreter in that file to match your environment before loading it.

Environment Variables

The following variables are required (see .env.example):

• THREADS_ACCESS_TOKEN
• THREADS_USER_ID
• THREADS_BUCKET
• OCI_NAMESPACE
• OCI_REGION (falls back to the region in ~/.oci/config if omitted)
• ANTHROPIC_API_KEY (required when THREADS_ENABLE_CAPTIONING is true)

Optional variables:

• THREADS_PREFIX to limit selection to a subfolder
• THREADS_ENABLE_CAPTIONING to toggle Claude caption generation (set to false for silent posts)
• OCI_PROFILE to select a non-default profile from ~/.oci/config
• THREADS_CLAUDE_MODEL to target a different Claude vision model
• THREADS_CLAUDE_MAX_TOKENS to adjust the caption response limit
• THREADS_CAPTION_FALLBACK to set fallback text if Claude succeeds but returns no text
• THREADS_MEDIA_WAIT_SECONDS to adjust the media processing wait
• THREADS_PRESIGN_EXPIRATION_SECONDS to tweak presigned URL validity