Jibbithy/reddit-research

Reddit Research Skill

Comprehensive Reddit research routing through the most reliable methods. You know exactly which tools work, which don't, and when to use each.

Trigger

/reddit-research analyze r/homelab engagement
/reddit-research what subs does u/example_user post in
/reddit-research find deleted posts in r/SUBNAME
/reddit-research discover subreddits about topic X
search reddit for discussions about X
check reddit metrics for these subreddits

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Method ranking — one route works, the rest are dead

Re-tested 2026-09-19. Arctic Shift is the only working source. Everything else is blocked. The ladder below is not a graceful fallback chain; three of its four rungs are gone, and the failure mode that matters is quietly substituting a dead rung with web search and presenting the result as Reddit data.

Route	Status 2026-09-19	Evidence
Arctic Shift API	WORKS — the only one	curl .../api/posts/search?subreddit=selfhosted → 200, full post objects
reddit.com .json via curl	DEAD — 403	harness-level block; browser User-Agent does not help
WebFetch / WebSearch on reddit.com	DEAD	WebSearch returns 400 domains not accessible
Playwright on old.reddit.com	UNAVAILABLE	needs the Playwright MCP server, which routinely fails to connect

Arctic Shift — the primary and, in practice, only route

• Base: https://arctic-shift.photon-reddit.com/api
• Plain curl. No auth, no browser, no proof-of-work wall.
• Sees deleted, removed, and spam-filtered posts — the one thing no other route can do.

Use it for everything: historical research, metrics, user activity, rules, tone, deleted recovery.

Four gotchas that will silently ruin a run. All verified by live call.

1. Param names are non-obvious and wrong guesses hard-error. Full-text is title= or selftext= on /posts/search, and body= on /comments/search. q returns {"error":"Unknown query parameter: 'q'"}. sort takes only asc/desc.
2. {"error":"Timeout. Maybe slow down a bit"} returned in under a second is a RATE LIMIT, not a slow query. Four unpaced calls is enough to trigger it. Retrying with a longer -m or a narrower window does nothing. Pace ~4s between calls, and back off exponentially (8→120s) on that error.
3. On any error the response is {"data":null,...}. Code that reaches straight for json.data.length throws on the rate-limit response rather than reporting it. Null-check data before touching it, and surface error when it is set.
4. Posts newer than ~36h carry hide_score:true and score:1 — filter them out before computing any metric, or the numbers are fiction. There is no sort-by-score: fetch wide and sort client-side.

When Reddit genuinely cannot answer it

If the question needs live rankings, current subscriber counts, or a logged-in view, Arctic Shift cannot serve it and nothing else is available. Say that in the deliverable. Do not let a workflow return zero sentiment and read as "nothing found" — two prior research runs burned 206 agents producing no Reddit data before this was diagnosed.

These substitutes are verified working and are the honest fallback for "what do practitioners say", provided you label the source as not-Reddit:

• Hacker News (best substitute): https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search?query=<terms>&tags=story (or &tags=comment), then https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/items/<objectID> for the full comment tree. Require every quote to carry its comment id and re-fetch to confirm the string exists.
• Lobsters: https://lobste.rs/search?q=<terms>&what=stories&order=relevance
• Stack Exchange: https://api.stackexchange.com/2.3/search/advanced?order=desc&sort=votes&q=<terms>&site=stackoverflow

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Methods that do not work — never attempt

Method	Why	Result
curl / WebFetch to reddit.com (any path, incl. .json)	harness-level block; a browser User-Agent does not defeat it	403
WebSearch with site:reddit.com or allowed_domains:["reddit.com"]	domain not permitted	400 domains not accessible
Reddit RSS (.rss) via curl	blocked specifically	403
oauth.reddit.com without a token	redirects to HTML	301 → HTML
redlib / safereddit / libreddit mirrors	Anubis proof-of-work interstitial, needs JS	challenge page, 0 posts
api.pullpush.io (Pushshift successor)	down	502
r.jina.ai proxy in front of old.reddit.com	proxy returns 200 wrapping Reddit's own 403	403 body

Do not burn a run rediscovering these. If Arctic Shift cannot answer it, nothing here can.

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API reference

Endpoints, response fields, and the gotchas for both sources: references/api.md. Read it before building a call; do not reconstruct an endpoint from memory.

Engagement Metrics

The Four Metrics (compute from Arctic Shift data)

Metric	Formula	Measures
Comments/upvotes ratio (cmtRatio)	avgCmts / avgScore	Discussion depth
Upvote ratio	upvote_ratio field (0-1)	Community approval
Avg comments per post	sum(num_comments) / count	Activity level
Avg score per post	sum(score) / count	Reach/visibility

Computation

const posts = data.data.filter(p => !p.hide_score && p.score > 1);
const avgScore = posts.reduce((s, p) => s + p.score, 0) / posts.length;
const avgCmts = posts.reduce((s, p) => s + p.num_comments, 0) / posts.length;
const cmtRatio = avgCmts / avgScore;
const avgUpvoteRatio = posts.reduce((s, p) => s + p.upvote_ratio, 0) / posts.length;

Discussion-Depth Tiers

Tier	Threshold	Meaning
S	>= 0.70	Highly conversational
A	>= 0.25	Strong discussion
B	>= 0.10 or avg cmts >= 10	Moderate, worth engaging
C	0.05-0.10	Mostly passive / reach sub
D	< 0.05	Low engagement
E	avg cmts < 1	Dead or hard-gated

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Tone Assessment

Assess from post data already fetched (no extra calls):

1. link_flair_text values - themed days, categories, explicit indicators
2. Title patterns - language style, norms
3. selftext on top-scoring posts - culture signals
4. Score distribution - what the community actually rewards

Sort fetched posts by score client-side. Top 10-20 reveal community values.

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Standard workflows

One minimal-call recipe per recurring ask — research a subreddit, investigate a user, find threads, discover subs, batch-check, recover deleted posts, detect a shadowban: references/workflows.md.

Decision flowchart

Need Reddit data?
|
+-- Historical posts, comments, metrics, user activity, rules, deleted content?
|     --> Arctic Shift. This is every question the skill can actually answer.
|
+-- Live rankings, current subscriber count, or a logged-in view?
|     --> NOT AVAILABLE. reddit.com is 403 to curl and WebFetch; WebSearch
|         refuses the domain; Playwright needs an MCP server that is usually down.
|         Say so in the deliverable. Do not substitute web search silently.
|
+-- Shadowban check?
|     --> NOT AVAILABLE for the same reason (it needed /user/NAME/about.json).
|
+-- "What do practitioners say about X", where Reddit was only the means?
|     --> HN Algolia / Lobsters / Stack Exchange, labelled as not-Reddit.
|
+-- Posting, commenting, DMs, modmail?
      --> Not possible via research tools. Use Reddit's own interface.

The honest-gap rule: a question this skill cannot answer is reported as unanswerable, with the reason. A run that returns zero Reddit data and does not say why reads as "nothing found", which is a different and false claim.

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Scope Boundaries

• This skill is READ-ONLY research. No posting, commenting, or write operations.
• If the task requires posting or account actions, inform the user it must be done through Reddit's interface or an authenticated client.