In my last blog post I did an introduction to “how use the starter kit for Node-RED on IBM Cloud” and in this new blog post I want to highlight the Node-RED Twitter-follower-flow I developed as an introduction to different topics I frequently face at hackathons. Here is the link to the “Twitter-follower-flow” GitHub project. Node-RED is very good for prototyping, that is the reason why it is often used in hackathons. If you are new to Node-RED and you start to develop a Node-RED flow, you normally have following challenges:
- How to …
- … define own REST endpoints to encapsulate an external API?
- … automate the authentication to that external API?
- … extract data from the external API?
- … customize data and CRUD with databases?
The Node-RED flow of that project has the objective to provide an (little advanced) introduction to the first three topics above. The CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) topic is not covered here. Visit that CRUD example for more information.
- The “Twitter-follower-flow” example …
- … uses open technologies (Node-RED is a Project of the OpenJS foundation )
- … creates no additional costs
- Uses a free runtime on IBM Cloud
- Uses the free Twitter developer API
- … has following technical level:
- Beginner to intermediate
- Needs a basic knowledge of JavaScript and REST
- … takes 30 – 45 min to setup the example from scratch
- Register on IBM Cloud
- Create a Node-RED instance on IBM Cloud
- Register at Twitter for a developer API Account
- Copy the existing Node-RED flow
- Configure the flow
- Run the flow
The YouTube video below gives you a 13 min more detailed introduction to the Twitter-follower-flow.
