Reddit Scraper

Read and search Reddit posts via web scraping of old.reddit.com. Use when Clawdbot needs to browse Reddit content - read posts from subreddits, search for topics, monitor specific communities. Read-only access with no posting or comments.

Security Scan

The skill appears to do what it says — read-only Reddit reads via the public JSON API — with no unexplained credential requests or hidden network endpoints; a small documentation mismatch (mentions web scraping/old.reddit.com) is the main inconsistency.

Purpose & Capability

Overall coherent: the skill's code and TECHNICAL.md implement read-only Reddit access via Reddit's public JSON API, which matches the declared purpose (reading and searching posts). Minor inconsistency: the top-level description references web scraping of old.reddit.com, but the implementation uses the JSON API endpoints (reddit.com/*.json). This looks like outdated wording rather than malicious intent.

Instruction Scope

SKILL.md instructs the agent to run the included Python script with command-line options; the script only makes outbound HTTPS requests to reddit.com, parses returned JSON, and prints results. There are no instructions to read arbitrary host files, environment variables, or send data to third-party endpoints.

Install Mechanism

No install spec is provided (instruction-only), so nothing is written to disk by an installer. The script requires the Python 'requests' library; TECHNICAL.md suggests installing it via apt-get (python3-requests). That's reasonable, but the skill will fail if requests is absent — no package is provisioned by the skill itself.

Credentials

The skill declares no required environment variables, credentials, or config paths and the code does not access any secrets or unrelated environment variables. Network access is limited to reddit.com endpoints, consistent with the stated purpose.

Persistence & Privilege

Skill does not request persistent presence, does not modify other skills or system-wide settings, and is not marked always:true. It runs as an invoked script and has no autonomous elevated privileges beyond normal network access.

Assessment

This skill is internally consistent and appears to only fetch Reddit JSON data. Before installing, note: (1) the README wording mentioning old.reddit.com/web scraping is outdated — the code uses reddit.com's JSON API; (2) the host must have Python and the 'requests' package installed (TECHNICAL.md suggests apt-get install python3-requests); and (3) Reddit may rate-limit requests, so avoid high-frequency automated polling. If you need to restrict network access, consider running the skill in an environment that limits outbound connections to reddit.com only.

Reddit Skill 📰

Read and search Reddit posts using the public JSON API. No API key required.

Quick Start

# Read top posts from a subreddit
python3 /root/clawd/skills/reddit/scripts/reddit_scraper.py --subreddit LocalLLaMA --limit 5

# Search for posts
python3 /root/clawd/skills/reddit/scripts/reddit_scraper.py --search "clawdbot" --limit 5

# Read newest posts
python3 /root/clawd/skills/reddit/scripts/reddit_scraper.py --subreddit ClaudeAI --sort nuevos --limit 5

Options

Option	Short	Description	Default
--subreddit	-s	Subreddit name (without r/)	-
--search	-q	Search query	-
--sort	-	Sort: hot, new, top, populares, nuevos, rising	top
--time	-t	Time filter: hour, day, week, month, year, all	day
--limit	-n	Number of posts (max 100)	25
--json	-j	Output as JSON	false
--verbose	-v	Show post preview text	false

Examples

Read subreddit posts

# Top posts of the day (default)
python3 /root/clawd/skills/reddit/scripts/reddit_scraper.py --subreddit programming

# Hot posts
python3 /root/clawd/skills/reddit/scripts/reddit_scraper.py --subreddit programming --sort hot

# New posts
python3 /root/clawd/skills/reddit/scripts/reddit_scraper.py --subreddit programming --sort nuevos

# Top posts of the week
python3 /root/clawd/skills/reddit/scripts/reddit_scraper.py --subreddit programming --sort top --time week

Search posts

# Search all of Reddit
python3 /root/clawd/skills/reddit/scripts/reddit_scraper.py --search "machine learning"

# Search within a subreddit
python3 /root/clawd/skills/reddit/scripts/reddit_scraper.py --subreddit selfhosted --search "docker"

# Search with time filter
python3 /root/clawd/skills/reddit/scripts/reddit_scraper.py --search "AI news" --time week

JSON output

# Get raw JSON data for processing
python3 /root/clawd/skills/reddit/scripts/reddit_scraper.py --subreddit technology --limit 3 --json

Output Fields (JSON)

• title: Post title
• author: Username
• score: Upvotes (net)
• num_comments: Comment count
• url: Link URL
• permalink: Reddit discussion URL
• subreddit: Subreddit name
• created_utc: Unix timestamp
• selftext: Post text (first 200 chars)
• upvote_ratio: Upvote percentage (0-1)

Limitations

• Read-only: Cannot post, comment, or vote
• Rate limits: Reddit may rate-limit if too many requests
• No auth: Some content may be restricted

Technical Details

See TECHNICAL.md for implementation details.