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Use this X API glossary while reading Xquik API responses and guides. It defines concrete tweet, profile, follower, monitor, webhook, and billing terms. X calls its content objects posts. Xquik keeps tweet in public route names. This preserves familiar Twitter API terms and existing client integrations.
Treat IDs and cursors as strings. Treat counts as collection-time snapshots. Treat optional fields as absent unless the response supplies them.

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Quick X API terminology

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Tweet, reply & media terms

One content object published on X. Xquik routes use the word tweet. A tweet can contain text, media, links, mentions, hashtags, or polls. Store its id as a string. See the tweet field guide.
The stable string identifier for one tweet. A status URL usually ends with /status/{tweetId}. Use the ID for joins, dedupe, replies, quotes, likes, reposts, and media lookups. Never store it as a JavaScript number.
A tweet written in response to another tweet. inReplyToId identifies the direct parent. conversationId identifies the root conversation. A reply remains its own tweet with its own author and engagement counts.
A new tweet that adds text while referencing another tweet. The outer tweet owns the quote text. quoted_tweet contains the referenced tweet when available. Keep both tweet IDs and metric snapshots separate.
A redistribution of an existing tweet. X now uses the term repost. Xquik retains retweet in route and field names for compatibility. retweeted_tweet contains original tweet context when available.
A thread is a connected sequence of tweets and replies. Use conversationId to group a conversation. Use inReplyToId to preserve each direct parent edge. Do not infer reply order from IDs alone.
A reference to an X username inside tweet text. Mentions can appear in parsed entities and monitor events. A mention does not prove a reply, follow, endorsement, or conversation relationship.
A hashtag begins with #. A cashtag begins with $. Both can appear inside tweet entities and search queries. Preserve the original token before applying lowercase normalization.
Parsed tweet markers for URLs, mentions, hashtags, and related tokens. Entity arrays are conditional. Preserve the original tweet text beside extracted tokens. See the official X data dictionary for upstream object terminology.
An image, video, or animated GIF attached to a tweet or message. Xquik can return media URLs, types, dimensions, preview images, variants, alt text, and identifiers. Availability depends on the returned object.
Numeric snapshots for likes, replies, reposts, quotes, views, and bookmarks. Counts can change after collection. Store collected_at with every metrics snapshot. A missing count is not automatically zero.
A Note Tweet carries long-form tweet content and metadata. An X Article is a separate long-form object referenced from a tweet. Preserve returned nested objects instead of flattening their text into one field.

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Profile, follower & audience terms

The account object behind a username. Core fields include id, username, and name. Optional fields can include a biography, images, verification, location, followers, following, activity counts, and availability state.
The stable string identifier for one X account. Prefer it for database joins. A username can change. A user ID remains the stronger profile key.
The public account name used after @. Xquik accepts usernames with or without a leading @ on supported routes. Store the returned user ID too.
Accounts that follow the source profile. GET /x/users/{id}/followers returns follower profiles and cursor state. A follower snapshot can change after collection. Store the source user ID and collection time.
Accounts the source profile follows. GET /x/users/{id}/following returns those profiles. Following is directional. It does not prove mutual follow.
A directional edge between two X accounts. Use GET /x/followers/check when one current relationship matters. Use follower or following pages for audience exports.
An account whose posts have restricted visibility. A public profile lookup can still return limited metadata. Do not claim complete tweet or follower coverage when the response marks an account protected or unavailable.
An ordered page of tweets. A user timeline contains one profile’s tweets. A home timeline reflects the connected account’s feed. Save each returned cursor before requesting the next page.
An X group with members, moderators, rules, and a community tweet timeline. Xquik exposes community details, members, moderators, tweets, and search.
A curated X account collection. List members belong to the collection. List followers follow the list itself. These are different profile sets.
A private message between X accounts. DM history and writes require a connected X account. Store message IDs, participant IDs, timestamps, and returned media references.

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Twitter scraper API & export terms

An API that retrieves tweets, replies, profiles, followers, following, timelines, communities, lists, or media as structured responses. Xquik exposes these reads through REST, SDKs, MCP, and Actors.
A query over recent or top tweets. Search can use keywords, hashtags, authors, dates, media filters, language, and engagement filters. Preserve the exact query and filters across cursor pages.
One bounded response from a list endpoint. A requested page size is an upper bound. Fewer rows do not prove pagination finished. Check the returned continuation flag and cursor.
Pagination using opaque cursor tokens instead of page numbers. For X reads, pass next_cursor back as cursor. Events, draws, and extractions use cursor. Radar uses after. Drafts use afterCursor. Never decode or modify a cursor.
One request containing multiple tweet or profile IDs. Batch routes reduce repeated HTTP calls. Each returned object still needs its own ID-based validation and error handling.
A durable job for collecting and saving tweet, reply, profile, follower, following, community, list, media, or article results. Store the extraction ID. Poll status before retrieving JSON pages or file exports.
A saved CSV, JSON, or XLSX representation of extraction results. Direct API pages can also feed JSONL or database rows. Record the query, final cursor, row count, format, and completion state.
A collection-time view of profiles, relationships, or engagement counts. Followers, following, biographies, and tweet metrics can change later. Store collection timestamps before comparing two snapshots.
Removing repeated objects with a stable ID. Dedupe tweets by tweet ID. Dedupe profiles by user ID. Keep the newest complete optional fields when merging repeated pages or overlapping date windows.

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Monitor, event & webhook terms

A recurring account or keyword check. Monitor slots are unlimited. Active monitors check every second and cost 21 credits per hour. Account monitors track one username. Keyword monitors track a search query.
A stored tweet or profile change detected by a monitor. Account monitors support 21 event types. Keyword monitors support the 10 tweet.* types. Account monitors do not emit follower-gained or follower-lost events.
A monitor signal such as tweet.new, tweet.reply, tweet.quote, tweet.retweet, tweet.media, tweet.link, or tweet.poll. Subscribe only to types your receiver handles.
A detected profile change. Events cover names, usernames, biographies, locations, URLs, avatars, banners, verification, protection, pinned tweets, and availability. Keyword monitors do not accept profile event types.
An HTTPS callback for one monitor event. Xquik signs webhook requests with HMAC-SHA256. Verify X-Xquik-Signature and X-Xquik-Timestamp before processing the JSON body.
The identifier for one webhook delivery attempt sequence. Store deliveryId for receiver dedupe. Repeated delivery attempts must not create repeated tickets, alerts, or warehouse rows.
The stable ID of the stored monitor event behind a webhook payload. Join streamEventId to the events API when reconciling webhook delivery with stored tweet or profile changes.
Replay means processing a previously stored event again. Reconciliation compares webhook receipts with the events API. Use event IDs, delivery IDs, and cursors to find missing or duplicate work.
A giveaway winner selection from one tweet’s eligible participants. Draws can filter replies, follower counts, account age, reposts, following, language, keywords, hashtags, and mentions. Results include an audit page.

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X write & authentication terms

An X account authorized for private reads or write actions. Public tweet, profile, follower, reply, community, and list reads need no connected account. Tweets, likes, follows, DMs, and profile changes require one.
An operation that changes X state. Examples include creating or deleting tweets, liking, reposting, following, sending DMs, and updating profiles. Write costs vary by operation and media size.
The persisted lifecycle record for an X write. It records request identity, target, billing, status, retry safety, and next action. Store the returned durable action before starting another write.
A unique request key that prevents accidental duplicate write submission. Reuse the key only for the identical request. Use a new key only when the durable action says safeToRetry is true.
statusUrl identifies the durable action to poll. terminal shows whether processing ended. safeToRetry shows whether another submission is safe. Poll an active action instead of resending it.
Authentication credential passed via the x-api-key header. Account keys also support Bearer authentication. Generate account keys from the API Keys dashboard or the session-authenticated API keys endpoint.
Scoped authorization for account access without sharing an API key. Xquik uses S256 PKCE for authorization-code flows. Preserve granted scopes. Use refresh-token grants only through the documented OAuth endpoints.
The machine-readable specification for public routes, parameters, schemas, responses, and examples. Use https://docs.xquik.com/openapi.yaml as the public REST contract. Never infer undocumented response statuses.
An opt-in response shape selected with xquik-api-contract: 2026-04-29. It uses snake-case envelopes, prefixed resource IDs, structured errors, and normalized pagination fields.

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Billing, error & rate-limit terms

The metered unit for API usage. Costs depend on the operation, returned results, active monitor hours, write type, and media size. Subscription grants, top-ups, and automatic top-ups add credits to one shared balance. Unused credits carry over until you spend them.
An operation that deducts credits. Paid tweet, profile, follower, reply, timeline, extraction, draw, media, write, and active-monitor work can be metered. Check each route’s cost callout before running it.
An operation that consumes no credits. Stored monitor management, stored event reads, webhook operations, saved extraction reads, exports, account status, and API-key management are free. Active monitors are billed hourly.
Pay-as-you-go credits purchased by top-up. Top-up credits cost USD 0.00015 each. Top-up credits are added to your balance immediately and do not expire.
An accountless prepaid balance for 33 eligible GET routes. A verified hosted payment activates its Bearer key. Guest keys cannot access writes, account management, or private X reads.
Machine Payments Protocol for direct per-call payment. Seven fixed-price read operations accept an MPP Payment challenge without a subscription. A failed request does not create checkout automatically.
The caller cannot fund a metered operation. Account and guest responses can include credential-specific payment_options. Confirm any purchase before creating checkout or charging a saved payment method.
The caller exceeded a request bucket or action cooldown. Read error and Retry-After before retrying. A 429 is not a credit failure.
Xquik’s rate-limiting algorithm. Standard accounts receive independent read, write, and delete counters. Reads reset after 1 second. Writes and deletes reset after 60 seconds. See rate limits.
A response header containing seconds to wait. It can accompany a 429, active write, connection cooldown, or temporary service response. Inspect the status and error code before choosing an action.

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Common Twitter API definition questions

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What is the difference between a tweet and a post?

They describe the same core X content object. X now says post. Xquik keeps tweet terminology in routes, fields, and developer documentation.

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What is the difference between followers and following?

Followers are accounts that follow the source profile. Following are accounts the source profile follows. Both relationships are directional.

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How do replies, quotes & reposts differ?

A reply points to a parent tweet. A quote adds new text around another tweet. A repost redistributes the original. Keep every involved tweet ID separate.

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Is tweet scraping the same as monitoring?

No. A scraper API retrieves requested tweets, profiles, or audience pages. A monitor runs repeatedly and stores matching tweet or profile events.

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Why does Xquik use cursors instead of page numbers?

Cursors preserve server-defined continuation state for changing result sets. Pass them back unchanged. Never calculate or decode the next cursor.

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Is a webhook the same as polling?

No. A webhook pushes signed monitor events to your HTTPS receiver. Polling repeatedly requests events. Use polling for replay and reconciliation.

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Is an API key the same as a connected X account?

No. An API key authenticates the Xquik caller. A connected X account authorizes private reads and X write actions.

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What is the difference between 402 and 429?

402 means the request lacks sufficient payment or credits. 429 means the request rate or action frequency was exceeded.

API field guide

Map tweet, profile, media, relationship, and cursor fields.

API overview

Choose tweet, follower, reply, monitor, webhook, and write routes.

Error handling

Classify validation, billing, rate-limit, dependency, and write errors.