Reddit Researcher

Description

Research and analyze Reddit discussions by searching posts, reading comments, and summarizing community sentiment on any topic. Useful for gathering user opinions, troubleshooting insights, market research, and trend analysis.

Use Cases

Product Research: Find user complaints, feature requests, and feedback about products or services Troubleshooting: Discover common issues and solutions users are discussing Market Analysis: Understand community sentiment about brands, technologies, or trends Competitive Intelligence: See what users say about competitors Content Research: Gather information and perspectives on specific topics

Creating a Reddit Application

To access the Reddit API with higher rate limits, you need to create a Reddit app: Go to Reddit Apps Page Visit: https://www.reddit.com/prefs/apps Log in to your Reddit account Create a New App Scroll to the bottom and click "Create App" or "Create Another App" Select "script" as the app type (for personal/research use) Fill in App Details Name: Your app name (e.g., "ResearchBot") Description: Brief description of what the app does About URL: Your website or GitHub profile (optional) Redirect URI: Use http://localhost:8080 (required but not used for script apps) Get Your Credentials After creating the app, you'll see: Client ID: The string under the app name (e.g., abc123def456ghi) Client Secret: Click "edit" to reveal the secret (e.g., jkl789mno012pqr) Configure Environment export REDDIT_CLIENT_ID="your_client_id_here" export REDDIT_CLIENT_SECRET="your_client_secret_here" export REDDIT_USER_AGENT="ResearchBot/1.0 by u/yourusername"

Environment Variables

For higher rate limits and authenticated access: REDDIT_CLIENT_ID - From Reddit app registration REDDIT_CLIENT_SECRET - From Reddit app registration REDDIT_USER_AGENT - Custom user agent string (e.g., "MyResearchBot/1.0 by u/username")

Security Best Practices

Least-Privilege Credentials: Create a dedicated Reddit account for API access (do not use your personal/main account) Use the "script" app type which has minimal permissions (read-only by default) Never commit credentials to version control Rotate credentials periodically For production use, consider using a secrets manager instead of environment variables Rate Limiting: Anonymous access is limited to ~30 requests/minute OAuth access increases to 100 requests/minute Implement request throttling to avoid being rate-limited or banned

Authentication

Anonymous Access (Limited): Base URL: https://www.reddit.com Rate limit: ~30 requests per minute Add .json to any Reddit URL to get JSON data OAuth Access (Recommended): # Get access token curl -X POST https://www.reddit.com/api/v1/access_token \ -H "User-Agent: $REDDIT_USER_AGENT" \ --basic -u "$REDDIT_CLIENT_ID:$REDDIT_CLIENT_SECRET" \ -d "grant_type=client_credentials" Use the access token: Authorization: Bearer $ACCESS_TOKEN User-Agent: $REDDIT_USER_AGENT

Search Posts

Search for posts across Reddit or within specific subreddits. Search All Reddit curl "https://www.reddit.com/search.json?q=OpenCore+problems&sort=new&time=week&limit=25" \ -H "User-Agent: RedditResearchBot/1.0" Search Specific Subreddit curl "https://www.reddit.com/r/hackintosh/search.json?q=OpenCore&restrict_sr=1&sort=new&time=week" \ -H "User-Agent: RedditResearchBot/1.0" Query Parameters: q - Search query (required) sort - Sort by: relevance, new, hot, top, comments time - Time filter: hour, day, week, month, year, all limit - Number of results (1-100, default 25) after - Pagination token for next page restrict_sr=1 - Restrict to subreddit (when searching within subreddit)

Get Subreddit Posts

Hot Posts curl "https://www.reddit.com/r/hackintosh/hot.json?limit=25" \ -H "User-Agent: RedditResearchBot/1.0" New Posts curl "https://www.reddit.com/r/hackintosh/new.json?limit=25" \ -H "User-Agent: RedditResearchBot/1.0" Top Posts (by time period) curl "https://www.reddit.com/r/hackintosh/top.json?t=week&limit=25" \ -H "User-Agent: RedditResearchBot/1.0" Time periods: hour, day, week, month, year, all

Get Post Details and Comments

curl "https://www.reddit.com/r/hackintosh/comments/ABC123/post_title.json" \ -H "User-Agent: RedditResearchBot/1.0" Response Structure: [0] - Post data (listing with one post) [1] - Comments data (listing with comment tree)

Get User Profile and Posts

curl "https://www.reddit.com/user/username/submitted.json" \ -H "User-Agent: RedditResearchBot/1.0"

Post Object

{ "data": { "children": [{ "data": { "id": "post_id", "title": "Post Title", "selftext": "Post body text", "author": "username", "subreddit": "subreddit_name", "score": 123, "num_comments": 45, "created_utc": 1704067200, "permalink": "/r/subreddit/comments/id/title/", "url": "https://external-link.com" // or "self" post } }] } }

Comment Object

{ "data": { "body": "Comment text", "author": "username", "score": 10, "created_utc": 1704067200, "replies": { "data": { "children": [...] // Nested replies } } } }

Step 1: Define Research Query

Identify: Search terms and keywords Relevant subreddits Time period of interest Sort preference (new for recent, top for popular)

Step 2: Search and Filter Posts

# Example: Find recent OpenCore problems curl "https://www.reddit.com/r/hackintosh/search.json?q=OpenCore+issue+OR+problem+OR+error&sort=new&time=week&limit=50" \ -H "User-Agent: RedditResearchBot/1.0" | jq '.data.children[].data | {title, score, num_comments, permalink, created_utc}'

Step 3: Fetch Top Post Comments

# Get full post with comments curl "https://www.reddit.com/r/hackintosh/comments/POST_ID.json" \ -H "User-Agent: RedditResearchBot/1.0"

Step 4: Analyze and Summarize

Extract: Common Issues: Recurring problems mentioned Solutions: Fixes and workarounds suggested Sentiment: Overall community attitude Key Insights: Notable observations or patterns Specific Examples: Direct quotes or user experiences

Product Issues Research

# Find problems with a product in the last month curl "https://www.reddit.com/search.json?q=ProductName+issue+OR+bug+OR+problem&sort=new&time=month&limit=50" \ -H "User-Agent: RedditResearchBot/1.0"

Feature Requests Analysis

# Find feature requests in a specific subreddit curl "https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/search.json?q=feature+request+OR+wish+OR+please+add&sort=top&time=month&restrict_sr=1" \ -H "User-Agent: RedditResearchBot/1.0"

Troubleshooting Research

# Find solutions to common problems curl "https://www.reddit.com/r/techsupport/search.json?q=WiFi+disconnecting+fixed+OR+solved&sort=relevance&time=week" \ -H "User-Agent: RedditResearchBot/1.0"

Competitive Analysis

# Compare two products curl "https://www.reddit.com/search.json?q=ProductA+vs+ProductB&sort=top&time=month&limit=25" \ -H "User-Agent: RedditResearchBot/1.0"

Advanced Search Operators

Reddit supports search operators: title:keyword - Search in titles only selftext:keyword - Search in post body only author:username - Posts by specific user subreddit:name - Posts in specific subreddit site:example.com - Posts linking to specific domain url:text - Posts with URL containing text nsfw:no - Exclude NSFW content Example: curl "https://www.reddit.com/search.json?q=title:OpenCore+selftext:problem&sort=new&time=week" \ -H "User-Agent: RedditResearchBot/1.0"

Rate Limiting

Anonymous: ~30 requests per minute OAuth: 100 requests per minute Response headers include rate limit info (when using OAuth) Best Practices: Add delays between requests (1-2 seconds) Use OAuth for better limits Respect 429 responses and back off Cache results when possible

Extract Post Summaries

curl -s "https://www.reddit.com/r/hackintosh/new.json?limit=10" \ -H "User-Agent: RedditResearchBot/1.0" | \ jq '.data.children[].data | {title, score, num_comments, url: "https://reddit.com" + .permalink}'

Extract Comment Threads

curl -s "https://www.reddit.com/r/hackintosh/comments/POST_ID.json" \ -H "User-Agent: RedditResearchBot/1.0" | \ jq '.[1].data.children[].data | {author, body, score, replies: (.replies.data.children | length)}'

Filter by Score

curl -s "https://www.reddit.com/r/hackintosh/hot.json?limit=100" \ -H "User-Agent: RedditResearchBot/1.0" | \ jq '.data.children[].data | select(.score > 50) | {title, score, num_comments}'

Research Output Format

• When summarizing research, structure findings as:
• ## Research Summary: [Topic]
• ### Overview
• Brief description of what was researched and scope.
• ### Key Findings
• 1. **Finding 1**: Description with supporting evidence
• 2. **Finding 2**: Description with supporting evidence
• 3. **Finding 3**: Description with supporting evidence
• ### Common Issues/Sentiments
• **Issue 1**: Frequency and context
• **Issue 2**: Frequency and context
• ### Notable Discussions
• 1. **[Post Title](link)** - r/subreddit, X comments
• - Key insight or quote
• 2. **[Post Title](link)** - r/subreddit, X comments
• - Key insight or quote
• ### Recommendations/Conclusions
• Based on the research, actionable insights or conclusions.
• ### Data Points
• Posts analyzed: X
• Comments analyzed: X
• Time period: [dates]
• Primary subreddits: r/x, r/y

v1.0.0

Initial release Search posts across Reddit and subreddits Read post details and comment threads Analyze and summarize community discussions Support for anonymous and OAuth authentication Advanced search operators and filtering