Reddit Readonly

Read-only Reddit browsing for Clawdbot.

What this skill is for

• Finding posts in one or more subreddits (hot/new/top/controversial/rising)

• Searching for posts by query (within a subreddit or across all)

• Pulling a comment thread for context

• Producing a shortlist of permalinks so the user can open Reddit and reply manually

Hard rules

• Read-only only. This skill never posts, replies, votes, or moderates.

• Be polite with requests:

• Prefer small limits (5–10) first.

• Expand only if needed.

• When returning results to the user, always include permalinks.

Output format

All commands print JSON to stdout.

• Success: { "ok": true, "data": ... }

• Failure: { "ok": false, "error": { "message": "...", "details": "..." } }

Commands

1) List posts in a subreddit

node {baseDir}/scripts/reddit-readonly.mjs posts <subreddit> \

  --sort hot|new|top|controversial|rising \

  --time day|week|month|year|all \

  --limit 10 \

  --after <token>

2) Search posts

# Search within a subreddit

node {baseDir}/scripts/reddit-readonly.mjs search <subreddit> "<query>" --limit 10

# Search all of Reddit

node {baseDir}/scripts/reddit-readonly.mjs search all "<query>" --limit 10

3) Get comments for a post

# By post id or URL

node {baseDir}/scripts/reddit-readonly.mjs comments <post_id|url> --limit 50 --depth 6

4) Recent comments across a subreddit

node {baseDir}/scripts/reddit-readonly.mjs recent-comments <subreddit> --limit 25

5) Thread bundle (post + comments)

node {baseDir}/scripts/reddit-readonly.mjs thread <post_id|url> --commentLimit 50 --depth 6

6) Find opportunities (multi-subreddit helper)

Use this when the user describes criteria like:

"Find posts about X in r/a, r/b, and r/c posted in the last 48 hours, excluding Y".

node {baseDir}/scripts/reddit-readonly.mjs find \

  --subreddits "python,learnpython" \

  --query "fastapi deployment" \

  --include "docker,uvicorn,nginx" \

  --exclude "homework,beginner" \

  --minScore 2 \

  --maxAgeHours 48 \

  --perSubredditLimit 25 \

  --maxResults 10 \

  --rank new

Suggested agent workflow

• Clarify scope if needed: subreddits + topic keywords + timeframe.

• Start with find (or posts/search) using small limits.

• For 1–3 promising items, fetch context via thread.

• Present the user a shortlist:

• title, subreddit, score, created time

• permalink

• a brief reason why it matched

• If asked, propose draft reply ideas in natural language, but remind the user to post manually.

Troubleshooting

• If Reddit returns HTML, re-run the command (the script detects this and returns an error).

• If requests fail repeatedly, reduce --limit and/or set slower pacing via env vars:

export REDDIT_RO_MIN_DELAY_MS=800

export REDDIT_RO_MAX_DELAY_MS=1800

export REDDIT_RO_TIMEOUT_MS=25000

export REDDIT_RO_USER_AGENT='script:clawdbot-reddit-readonly:v1.0.0 (personal)'