---
title: "AI-powered X (Twitter) search via xAI Grok"
method: GET
path: "/twitter/ai-search"
tags: ["twitter"]
---

# AI-powered X (Twitter) search via xAI Grok

`GET /twitter/ai-search`

## Request

- Base URL: `https://www.socialcrawl.dev/v1`
- URL: `https://www.socialcrawl.dev/v1/twitter/ai-search`
- Auth: API key in header `x-api-key`

Natural-language search over X (Twitter) powered by xAI's Grok 4.3 model with the built-in x_search tool. Returns a synthesised answer plus X source citations. Pin results to specific authors via from_handles (or exclude with exclude_handles), and narrow to a time window with from_date / to_date. Costs 5 credits per call regardless of how many internal x_search invocations the model performs (see tool_calls_count in the response for visibility). Auto-refunds on upstream failure. Best for freeform questions like 'what is @elonmusk saying about xAI this week' that would otherwise require multiple structured calls to /v1/twitter/profile, /v1/twitter/user/tweets, etc. **Read a thin answer as thin retrieval, never as an empty corpus.** This is a discovery surface: the model runs a handful of internal searches and answers from what they returned, so a reply such as 'limited posts appear on this topic' is a statement about that retrieval, not about X. Keyword search over the same window routinely finds substantially more. Most calls take 10 to 30 seconds and broad multi-keyword prompts up to about a minute, so set a client timeout of at least 100 seconds; that makes it a poor fit for tight iteration loops. An identical request repeated within 30 minutes is answered from cache, free, so polling the same question more often than that returns the same answer.

## Query parameters

- `query` string, required
- `from_handles` string
- `exclude_handles` string
- `from_date` string
- `to_date` string

## Headers

- `Cache-Control` string
- `Idempotency-Key` string

## Response `200`

Successful response

- object
  - `success` boolean, required: Whether the request succeeded
  - `platform` string, required: Platform name
  - `endpoint` string, required: API endpoint path
  - `data` object, required: Platform-specific response data
    - `metrics` object: Key performance metrics
      - `total_views` integer: Total view count
      - `total_likes` integer: Total like count
      - `total_comments` integer: Total comment count
      - `engagement_rate` number: Computed engagement rate (0-1)
    - `period` string, nullable: Time period for the analytics data
    - `breakdown` object[], nullable: Per-item or per-period breakdown
    - `_warnings` string[]: Non-fatal notices about this response (field-map drift, clamped computed values). Advisory only: its presence never means the request failed. Omitted entirely when there is nothing to report, so treat absent as 'no warnings'.
  - `credits_used` integer, required: Number of credits consumed
  - `credits_remaining` integer, nullable, required: Current account balance, or null when this response could not establish one. Free cache hits always return null because they do not establish an authoritative post-request balance. An idempotency replay also returns null when its current-balance lookup fails. It is never a fabricated zero, so a zero here means the account really is empty. The authoritative reading is the one on a billed response, which comes straight from the deduction.
  - `request_id` string, required: Unique request identifier for support
  - `cached` boolean, required: Whether the response was served from cache
  - `idempotent_replay` boolean: True only when this response is an idempotency replay
  - `meta` object: Optional. Present only when this call completed a pattern that one other call does more cheaply or in one step, at most once per pattern per API key per day. Send the header `X-SocialCrawl-Hints: off` to never receive it.
    - `hint` object: One suggestion: what to call instead and why, with the price when the suggested call costs more than the calls it replaces.
      - `code` string: creator_card | batch_profiles | search_multi | incremental_sync | comment_labels | search_repeat
      - `message` string: One sentence for a person or an agent to read.
      - `method` string: GET or POST.
      - `path` string: The call the hint points to.

## Other responses

- `400`: Invalid request - missing or malformed parameters
- `401`: Unauthorized - missing or invalid API key
- `402`: Payment required - the account balance is too low, or the calling key has spent its own per-key credit limit
- `404`: Not found - the endpoint does not exist, or the requested resource was not found upstream
- `405`: Method not allowed - wrong HTTP verb for this endpoint
- `409`: Conflict - an idempotent request is still in flight, its completed body exceeded the replay limit, or the cohort resource is not in a state that allows this operation
- `410`: Gone - the discover run's retention passed and its rows were deleted; start a new run
- `413`: Payload too large: the JSON request body exceeds the 1 MB size limit and is rejected before parsing, or a single cohort result cannot fit beneath the 1 MB response-page ceiling
- `422`: Idempotency payload mismatch - this Idempotency-Key was already used with a different request payload; or a discover request with async=false is over what one call can answer (NEEDS_ASYNC)
- `429`: Rate or concurrency limit exceeded. `RATE_LIMITED`: more than 600 requests in a 1-minute sliding window on this API key (headers `X-RateLimit-Limit`/`Remaining`/`Reset`; `Retry-After` is seconds until the window resets). `CONCURRENCY_LIMIT`: more than 50 simultaneous in-flight requests (headers `X-Concurrency-Limit`/`Remaining`; short static `Retry-After`). Both are unbilled. Honor `Retry-After`, then back off with jitter. See /docs/rate-limits.
- `500`: Internal server error - an immediate refund is attempted; credits_used reports the committed net charge and exact compensation is queued if that refund cannot commit
- `502`: Upstream error - the platform returned an error; an immediate refund is attempted and credits_used reports the committed net charge
- `503`: Service unavailable - the request is unbilled when rejected before deduction, otherwise an immediate refund is attempted and credits_used reports the committed net charge
- `504`: Gateway timeout - the request was still running close to the platform time limit and is answered as UPSTREAM_ERROR, the same code as 502. An immediate refund is attempted and credits_used reports the committed net charge. When details.retry_with is set, retryable is false and there is no Retry-After

---

[API](https://skmtc.dev/socialcrawl/apis/socialcrawl-api.md) · [All operations](https://skmtc.dev/socialcrawl/apis/socialcrawl-api/llms.txt) · [OpenAPI document](https://skmtc.dev/socialcrawl/apis/socialcrawl-api/revisions/a0ad2511004a?raw)
