Hi there. Totally understand the angle and questions here - and as a developer myself, I look for predictability in the behaviour of my code, so I can understand your frustration in the behaviours you’re observing. There are a couple of issues with providing 100% clear cut guidelines, specifically that many of our antispam systems that you’re speculating about in this thread are based on adapting to changing behaviours on the platform, and that as the folks who look after the developer platform, we can’t necessarily speak to the ways that Tweets and conversation threads are displayed and presented in the Twitter-owned applications.
The most direct guidelines are provided in the automation rules and policy clarification on automated replies.
There is simply no ironclad way to “assure” or “guarantee” that every single Tweet will always be displayed in a specific context; this may depend on user choices such as hiding Tweets from untrusted profiles, as well as measures to improve the health of the conversation on the Twitter side.
However, if you use the documented APIs in an organic manner and include the relevant parameters (in_reply_to values, with the @handles included or added via metadata) then you should be in the best shape to see predictable behaviour.
We do understand that this may be a disappointing response, but as the platform evolves, sometimes the user interface may move at a different pace to the backend APIs. We thank you for your understanding and patience in building with us.
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