| name | reddit-opportunity |
| description | ALWAYS use this skill when the user wants to discover product opportunities or pain points from a Reddit community and they do NOT yet have a product. Use when the user says "find problems people will pay to solve", "what should I build from r/...", "reddit opportunity", "discover product ideas from a subreddit", "需求发现", "从 Reddit 找商机", or asks to monitor/analyze a subreddit for recurring complaints. Monitors a subreddit's public RSS feed (no API key, no scraper), builds and updates a 7-section Subreddit Profile (the shared community profile both reddit skills maintain), finds recurring problems, judges willingness to pay, and generates a product concept. Supports a single subreddit or a versioned feed preset, including the Agent startup opportunity radar. Shares state with reddit-outreach. RSS returns posts only — no comments, no scores; analysis works on post bodies. After every run, present a ranked list of problems and ask whether to deep-dive.
|
reddit-opportunity Skill
You discover product opportunities from a Reddit community when the user has no product yet.
You monitor a subreddit's public RSS feed, maintain a 7-section Subreddit Profile, find recurring
problems people describe, judge whether they'd pay to solve them, and generate a product concept.
You are the orchestrator — the only Python you run is the shared scripts/reddit_rss.py helper.
Architecture
User target
├─► explicit subreddit ───────────────────────────────► single mode
└─► config/reddit_feeds/{preset}.yaml ───────────────► preset mode
│
Claude orchestrator │
├─► python3 scripts/reddit_rss.py SUBREDDIT ... ◄───────────┘
├─► state/reddit/last_scan.json ⟷ per-subreddit cursors
├─► state/subreddit_profiles/{sub}.md ⟷ per-subreddit profiles
├─► state/reddit/{sub}.jsonl ⟷ eligible post history
├─► per-feed filtering + status
├─► cross-segment pain analysis
└─► output/reddit_opportunities.json
The helper remains single-request and single-subreddit. Preset iteration, request spacing,
filtering, state updates, and aggregation happen in this skill.
Quick Reference
| User says | You do |
|---|
| "find problems in r/X" / "what should I build from r/X" | Run single mode for X |
| "/reddit-opportunity agent-startup" / "scan my Agent startup feeds" | Load config/reddit_feeds/agent-startup.yaml and run preset mode |
| "deep dive on #1" | Expand one problem into a full product concept + guide outline + landing copy |
| "scan r/X again" / "what changed" | Diff that subreddit vs last_scan.json, process only new posts |
1. Determine the target mode
Resolve the target in this order:
- Explicit subreddit wins. A user-provided
r/X or subreddit name selects single mode,
even if a preset also exists.
- A known preset name such as
agent-startup, or a request to scan "my Agent startup feeds",
selects preset mode and loads config/reddit_feeds/{preset}.yaml.
- If neither target is identifiable, ask at most one question: "Which subreddit or feed preset?"
Give
SaaS and agent-startup as examples.
- Do not silently default to a preset.
Before network access in preset mode, validate:
- top-level
name, description, scan, and non-empty feeds exist;
scan.sort is new, hot, or top;scan.limit is an integer from 1 through 25;- interval and retry values are non-negative integers;
- subreddit names are unique;
- every feed has
subreddit, segment, and language;
- every
language: zh feed has a non-empty include_keywords list.
If validation fails, report the exact file and field and stop before the first RSS request.
2A. Single-subreddit fetch
Run:
python3 scripts/reddit_rss.py SUBREDDIT --sort new --limit 25
The helper routes through http://127.0.0.1:7890 by default; use --proxy "" for a direct connection.
- Exit 0: parse the JSON array.
- Exit 2 (
rate_limited): wait about 60 seconds and retry once; on repeat failure, report and stop.
- Exit 3 (
not_found): report that the subreddit is missing/private and stop.
- Exit 1: report the helper's network, parse, or HTTP error and stop.
Read state/reddit/last_scan.json. Posts newer than this subreddit's newest_post_id are new;
on first scan all fetched posts are new. Append fetched posts to state/reddit/{sub}.jsonl, deduped
by id, then update the cursor. Continue with the existing profile and pain-analysis flow.
2B. Preset fetch loop
Process feeds sequentially in YAML order. Do not launch parallel helper invocations.
For each feed:
-
Invoke:
python3 scripts/reddit_rss.py SUBREDDIT --sort SCAN_SORT --limit SCAN_LIMIT
-
Handle the result without discarding state already written for earlier feeds:
- Exit 0: parse and diff the feed, then continue below.
- Exit 2: wait
retry_after_rate_limit_seconds, retry up to retry_limit, then record
rate-limited and continue to the next feed.
- Exit 3: record
missing/private and continue.
- Exit 1 or malformed stdout: record
failed and continue. Do not append or advance that feed.
-
Read that subreddit's cursor and identify new posts from the raw feed.
-
If there are no new posts, record no-new-posts.
-
Apply Keyword filtering when include_keywords exists:
- combine each post's
title + selftext;
- compare case-insensitively;
- retain the post when any keyword is a substring;
- do not append, profile, or analyze filtered-out posts.
-
Advance state/reddit/last_scan.json from the raw feed's newest post, including when all new
posts were filtered out. This prevents the same irrelevant posts from reappearing.
-
Append eligible posts to state/reddit/{sub}.jsonl, deduped by id, and update that subreddit's
profile. Record filtered-empty when filtering removes every new post; otherwise record scanned.
-
Wait request_interval_seconds before the next helper invocation. Do not wait after the final feed.
Keep a run-local scan summary with subreddit, segment, language, status, fetched_count,
new_count, eligible_count, and optional error. Exactly one terminal status is recorded per feed:
scanned, no-new-posts, filtered-empty, missing/private, rate-limited, or failed.
3. Build / update the Subreddit Profile
Read state/subreddit_profiles/{sub}.md (create if missing). Merge new signals into the 7 sections.
This profile is the shared asset both reddit skills maintain — update it, don't overwrite unrelated
sections.
In preset mode, update a subreddit's profile only from that feed's eligible new posts. Never merge
filtered-out posts or posts from a failed fetch. One feed's profile failure does not erase or replace
profiles already updated earlier in the run.
The 7 sections and how to derive them from RSS post bodies:
| # | Section | How to derive (RSS-only) |
|---|
| 1 | Demographics | Infer age / region / occupation / stage from post language |
| 2 | Psychographics | Infer wants / fears / self-image / who they avoid / what embarrasses them |
| 3 | User language | Extract verbatim phrases for the problem / ideal solution / tried methods |
| 4 | Tried solutions | What they've already tried + why it failed |
| 5 | What content works | Not supported in RSS-only mode — leave a note "requires .json API (upvote/removal data)" |
| 6 | Community rules | Partially: use WebFetch on the subreddit sidebar/rules page (permitted for www.reddit.com) |
| 7 | Content style | Infer post length / personal-story use / headers / common openings from post bodies |
4. Pain analysis
For each recurring problem you find across posts, record:
- frequency — how many posts mention it
- verbatim language — the exact phrases users use to describe it
- pain / urgency — low / medium / high
- tried solutions — what they've already attempted
- why they fail — the gap those attempts leave
- willingness to pay — explicit ("I'd pay for this"), implicit (frustration + no free fix), or none
In preset mode, also record source_subreddits and source_segments for each problem. Normalize
wording only when posts describe the same underlying job or failure; preserve verbatim quotations
and their subreddit provenance.
Use four evidence labels:
- Technical recurrence — repeated in
agent-builders.
- Commercial recurrence — repeated in
founders.
- Buyer recurrence — repeated in
automation-buyers or chinese-market.
- Cross-segment validation — supported by at least two distinct segments.
Cross-segment validation raises confidence but does not replace explicit or implicit payment evidence.
5. Rank and select
Start with frequency × urgency × willingness_to_pay. In preset mode, use Cross-segment validation
as supporting evidence when ordering otherwise comparable problems. Do not invent a numeric bonus:
show the contributing subreddits and segments so the user can inspect the evidence. Pick the top
problem as the primary opportunity.
6. Generate a product concept
For the top problem, produce:
- positioning — one paragraph: who it's for, what it does, why now.
- guide outline — a 25–30 section outline (markdown) for a paid guide that solves the problem.
- landing copy — headline + subhead + 3 benefit bullets.
Scope boundary: actual landing-page deployment and payment (Stripe) are OUT of scope. You output
positioning + guide content + copy that a human hands off to deployment.
7. Write output and present
Write output/reddit_opportunities.json.
Single mode preserves the existing shape:
{
"subreddit": "SaaS",
"generated_at": "2026-08-20T10:05:00Z",
"opportunities": [
{
"rank": 1,
"problem": "automating customer onboarding",
"frequency": 12,
"pain_level": "high",
"verbatim_language": ["we keep copy-pasting the same onboarding steps"],
"tried_solutions": ["Zapier", "manual SOP docs"],
"why_they_fail": "brittle, not product-specific",
"willingness_to_pay": "explicit",
"product_concept": "An onboarding automation assistant for small B2B SaaS teams.",
Preset mode uses:
{
"preset": "agent-startup",
"subreddits": ["AI_Agents", "LangChain", "SaaS", "China_irl"],
"generated_at": "2026-08-20T10:05:00Z",
"scan_summary": [
{
"subreddit": "AI_Agents",
"segment": "agent-builders",
"language": "en",
"status": "scanned",
"fetched_count": 25,
"new_count": 8,
"eligible_count": 8
},
{
"subreddit":
The full preset output lists all configured subreddits and one scan-summary row per feed; the shortened
example above demonstrates the shape. Present the scan summary first, then the ranked opportunity
table, then ask: "Deep dive on any of these? Say a number."
8. State files
| File | Shape |
|---|
state/subreddit_profiles/{sub}.md | 7-section markdown profile |
state/reddit/{sub}.jsonl | one JSON object per line: {id, title, author, permalink, published, selftext, category, first_seen} |
state/reddit/last_scan.json | { "r/SaaS": {"last_scan": "ISO8601", "newest_post_id": "...", "post_count": 25} } |
config/reddit_feeds/{preset}.yaml | versioned feed inventory + scan policy; read-only at runtime |
output/reddit_opportunities.json | shape above |
Timestamps are ISO 8601 UTC. Create directories (state/reddit, state/subreddit_profiles) if missing.
9. Guardrails
- This skill only READS public posts and writes local state. It never posts to Reddit.
- The product concept is for the user to validate; you do not deploy anything or take payment.
10. Error handling
| Symptom | Single mode | Preset mode |
|---|
rate_limited (exit 2) | Wait about 60s, retry once, then report and stop | Wait configured delay, retry configured count, record rate-limited, continue |
not_found (exit 3) | Report missing/private and stop | Record missing/private, continue |
| network / parse / HTTP error | Report and stop | Record failed; do not append or advance that feed; continue |
| no new posts | Report and stop | Record no-new-posts, continue |
| all new posts filtered | Not applicable | Advance the raw cursor, record filtered-empty, continue |
| profile section 5 requested | Explain RSS lacks score/removal data | Same |
A preset run is successful when its configuration is valid and at least one feed completes acquisition,
even if no eligible new posts remain. Report partial failures explicitly; never describe an unscanned
feed as successful.
11. Conversational flow
Single mode: determine subreddit → fetch + diff → update profile → analyze pain → rank → generate
concept → write output → present → ask to deep-dive.
Preset mode: resolve + validate preset → fetch feeds sequentially → filter + update per-subreddit
state → retain per-feed statuses → aggregate eligible posts → cross-segment analysis → rank → generate
concept → write preset output → present scan summary + opportunities → ask to deep-dive.
