Analysis updated 2026-07-17 · repo last pushed 2012-07-04
Automatically poke back a friend who keeps poking you on Facebook
Study a minimal example of headless-browser automation using PhantomJS
Explore how old Facebook automation scripts logged in and interacted with the site
| kdar/fbpoke | 00kaku/wp-rest-playground | chalarangelo/mini-active-record | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stars | 5 | 5 | 5 |
| Language | JavaScript | JavaScript | JavaScript |
| Last pushed | 2012-07-04 | — | — |
| Maintenance | Dormant | — | — |
| Setup difficulty | moderate | hard | easy |
| Complexity | 1/5 | 3/5 | 1/5 |
| Audience | general | developer | vibe coder |
Figures from each repo's GitHub metadata at analysis time.
Relies on PhantomJS, which is no longer maintained and likely won't run on Facebook's current site.
This is a small automation tool that automatically pokes people back on Facebook, so you don't have to do it manually. If someone keeps poking you as a joke or to get your attention, this script will poke them back automatically whenever they poke you. The way it works is straightforward: the script logs into your Facebook account using your email and password, then watches for incoming pokes and responds by sending pokes back. It uses a tool called PhantomJS, which is basically a headless browser, think of it as a web browser that runs without a visual window, so a computer can automate clicking and typing on websites the way a human would. To use it, you run the script from your computer's command line and provide your Facebook email and password as arguments. Alternatively, if you're not comfortable passing your credentials as a command-line argument, you can edit the script file directly and hardcode your login information. Then PhantomJS launches, logs in as you, and sits there automatically responding to pokes. This is a joke project from back when Facebook's "poke" feature was more commonly used (it's less popular now). It's the kind of thing someone might have written to get back at a friend who kept poking them repeatedly, or just to have fun with automation. The project is very minimal, just a few lines of code, and probably hasn't been maintained in years, since PhantomJS itself is no longer actively developed and Facebook's interface has changed significantly. If someone wanted to actually run this today, they'd likely run into compatibility issues.
A joke automation script that logs into Facebook and automatically pokes back anyone who pokes you, built with PhantomJS from the era when poking was popular.
Mainly JavaScript. The stack also includes JavaScript, PhantomJS.
Dormant — no commits in 2+ years (last push 2012-07-04).
Setup difficulty is rated moderate, with roughly 30min to a first successful run.
Mainly general.
This repo across BitVibe Labs
Verify against the repo before relying on details.