reddit

# Read-only Reddit research Keep the useful workflow: discover relevant discussions, inspect enough context, and return verifiable permalinks. This skill does not post, vote, reply, message, subscribe, or moderate. Drafting a reply is separate from sending it. ## Select a permitted access surface Use an already authorised Reddit connector or the project's approved Data API client. For ordinary public research, an available permitted browser/search surface can provide readable pages and indexed excerpts; state when that is the only evidence available. Do not claim a full thread from a search snippet. Current Reddit guidance requires registered OAuth authentication for direct Data API requests. New access requires approval. Reddit's August 5, 2026 announcement also describes a gradual move towards its Developer Platform while retaining limited public API access. Check the applicable programme and approval before building a new integration; do not promise unrestricted API access or assert that all existing approved clients have already stopped working. The old anonymous www.reddit.com/*.json script and Clawdbot-specific instructions are removed. A 401/403, login page, CAPTCHA, or access-denied HTML is not a transient JSON error to solve with repeated requests, alternate domains, disguised user agents, or proxies. Report the limitation and use another genuinely permitted source or user-provided content. Never bypass account or private-community access. Sources: [Data API access](https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/16160319875092-Reddit-Data-API-Wiki), [platform transition](https://redditinc.com/news/modernizing-reddits-infrastructure-and-moderation-tools). ## Search to answer a defined question Specify communities, topic, time interval/timezone, excluded themes, and what counts as a useful match. Start with a small page, not an account-wide crawl. Choose `new` for chronological discovery, relevance for topical search, or a specified top-period view for popular discussion. Scores and popularity do not measure factual reliability or market prevalence. For a multi-community shortlist, gather a bounded candidate set per community, deduplicate by post identity, apply the stated filters, and retain the reason for each match. Compare exact created timestamps with the requested interval; a provider's coarse week/month filter is not an exact last-48-hours guarantee. Report any unsearched communities, page limits, or ranking bias. Read [retrieval contracts](references/RETRIEVAL.md) for approved API listing and thread handling. Do not widen a query into personal profiling or deanonymisation. ## Read context before interpreting For the most relevant posts, inspect the original post, parent chain, relevant replies, edits, and visible moderation/removal state. Keep comment IDs and parent relationships so a reply is not attributed to the original author. Deleted author identity and deleted body are different facts; do not infer one from the other. Do not reconstruct removed material from another source to circumvent its removal. Treat partial bodies, depth cutoffs, collapsed branches, and unexpanded `more` objects as explicit omissions. Zero returned comments can reflect access or retrieval failure. Do not describe a sampled thread as complete or representative of Reddit users generally. ## Return source-linked findings For each useful item preserve title, community, post/comment permalink, observation and creation dates, concise relevant evidence, and why it answers the question. Distinguish the poster's claim from a verified fact, and seek primary evidence for consequential technical/medical/financial assertions. Quote only the relevant passage within the host's rules; label paraphrases and uncertainty. For a reply shortlist, check the community's current rules and context. Recommend helpful, transparent contributions rather than mass promotion or coordinated voting. Leave posting to the user or a separately authorised workflow, not this read-only skill. Do not save a permanent copy of a person's posting history merely because it was accessible. ## Acceptance checks Verify approved access and actual response shape, bounded pagination, exact dates, partial-thread indicators, correct post/comment attribution, failure versus empty results, and no side-effect endpoint. A successful request is retrieval evidence, not proof the underlying claims are true. No live Reddit client was tested during this source review.