How Threads Works

This repository contains my notes and discoveries while reverse-engineering Threads app. Feel free to PR if you've found something new, or to build clients with this info (with credit ofc 😉).

Web (threads.net)

The web version of Threads is currently read-only, so not much can be learned about authentication or posting. It uses Meta's Relay GraphQL Client to talk to the backend (threads.net/api/graphql), which seems to be configured to disallow arbitrary queries. This leaves us limited to the existing queries found in the frontend's source:

Note When querying the GraphQL backend, make sure to set an user-agent (seems like anything works here) and set the x-ig-app-id header to 238260118697367.

Get profile data

Doc ID: 23996318473300828

Variables: userID (the user's ID)

curl --request POST \
  --url https://www.threads.net/api/graphql \
  --header 'user-agent: threads-client' \
  --header 'x-ig-app-id: 238260118697367' \
  --header 'content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded' \
  --data 'variables={"userID":"314216"}' \
  --data doc_id=23996318473300828

Get profile posts

Doc ID: 6232751443445612

Variables: userID (the user's ID)

curl --request POST \
  --url https://www.threads.net/api/graphql \
  --header 'user-agent: threads-client' \
  --header 'x-ig-app-id: 238260118697367' \
  --header 'content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded' \
  --data 'variables={"userID":"314216"}' \
  --data doc_id=6232751443445612

Get profile replies

Doc ID: 6307072669391286

Variables: userID (the user's ID)

curl --request POST \
  --url https://www.threads.net/api/graphql \
  --header 'user-agent: threads-client' \
  --header 'x-ig-app-id: 238260118697367' \
  --header 'content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded' \
  --data 'variables={"userID":"314216"}' \
  --data doc_id=6307072669391286

Get a post

Doc ID: 5587632691339264

Variables: postID (the post's ID)

curl --request POST \
  --url https://www.threads.net/api/graphql \
  --header 'user-agent: threads-client' \
  --header 'x-ig-app-id: 238260118697367' \
  --header 'content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded' \
  --data 'variables={"postID":"3138977881796614961"}' \
  --data doc_id=5587632691339264

Get a list of users who liked a post

Doc ID: 9360915773983802

Variables: mediaID (the post's ID)

curl --request POST \
  --url https://www.threads.net/api/graphql \
  --header 'user-agent: threads-client' \
  --header 'x-ig-app-id: 238260118697367' \
  --header 'content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded' \
  --data 'variables={"mediaID":"3138977881796614961"}' \
  --data doc_id=9360915773983802

Mobile Apps

Authentication

Warning This endpoint currently only works for accounts without 2FA enabled.

The mobile apps use Meta's Bloks framework (originally built for Instagram Lite) for authentication.

The bloks versioning ID for threads is 00ba6fa565c3c707243ad976fa30a071a625f2a3d158d9412091176fe35027d8. Bloks also requires you to provide a device id (of shape ios-RANDOM | android-RANDOM, RANDOM being a random set of 13 chars).

curl --request POST \
  --url 'https://i.instagram.com/api/v1/bloks/apps/com.bloks.www.bloks.caa.login.async.send_login_request/' \
  --header 'user-agent: Barcelona 289.0.0.77.109 Android' \
  --header 'sec-fetch-site: same-origin' \
  --header 'content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded; charset=UTF-8' \
  --data 'params={"client_input_params":{"password":"$PASSWORD","contact_point":"$USERNAME","device_id":"$DEVICE_ID"},"server_params":{"credential_type":"password","device_id":"$DEVICE_ID"}}' \
  --data 'bloks_versioning_id=00ba6fa565c3c707243ad976fa30a071a625f2a3d158d9412091176fe35027d8'

This request returns a big JSON payload. Your token will be immediately after the string Bearer IGT:2:, and should be 160 characters long.

Creating a text post

curl --request POST \
  --url 'https://i.instagram.com/api/v1/media/configure_text_only_post/' \
  --header 'content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded; charset=UTF-8' \
  --header 'user-agent: Barcelona 289.0.0.77.109 Android' \
  --header 'authorization: Bearer IGT:2:$TOKEN' \
  --header 'sec-fetch-site: same-origin' \
  --data 'signed_body=SIGNATURE.{"publish_mode":"text_post","text_post_app_info":"{\"reply_control\":0}","timezone_offset":"0","source_type":"4","_uid":"$USER_ID","device_id":"$DEVICE_ID","caption":"$POST_TEXT","device":{"manufacturer":"OnePlus","model":"ONEPLUS+A3003","android_version":26,"android_release":"8.1.0"}}'

Misc

How to get a profile's id from their username?

Threads uses the same ID system used by Instagram. The best approach to convert from username to id seems to be requesting the user's instagram page (instagram.com/:username) and manually parsing the response HTML. For other methods, see this StackOverflow question.