Reddit CLI

Token-efficient Reddit access via the public JSON API. No authentication required.

Why This Approach?

Appending .json to any Reddit URL returns pure JSON - a little-known trick that bypasses the need for API keys or OAuth.

Metric	Value
Token reduction	94% average (10-40x compression)
Latency	~400-600ms (network-bound)
Auth required	None
Rate limit	~10 req/min

Commands

List Subreddit Posts

reddit posts <subreddit> [--limit N] [--sort hot|new|top|rising]

Examples:

reddit posts programming --limit 10
reddit posts MachineLearning --sort top --limit 5
reddit posts LocalLLaMA --sort new

Get Post with Comments

reddit post <url> [--limit N]

Examples:

reddit post "https://reddit.com/r/programming/comments/abc123/title"
reddit post /r/python/comments/xyz789/post_title --limit 50

Search Reddit

reddit search <query> [--subreddit NAME] [--limit N]

Examples:

reddit search "rust vs go"
reddit search "MCP model context protocol" --limit 10
reddit search "async" --subreddit python --limit 20

Get User Activity

reddit user <username> [--limit N]

Examples:

reddit user spez --limit 10

Output Format

All commands return minimal JSON with only essential fields:

Posts:

[
  {
    "title": "Post title",
    "author": "username",
    "subreddit": "programming",
    "score": 1234,
    "comments": 56,
    "url": "https://example.com/article",
    "permalink": "https://reddit.com/r/..."
  }
]

Post with Comments:

{
  "post": {
    "title": "...",
    "author": "...",
    "score": 1234,
    "text": "Self post content (truncated)..."
  },
  "comments": [
    {"author": "user1", "score": 100, "body": "Comment...", "depth": 0},
    {"author": "user2", "score": 50, "body": "Reply...", "depth": 1}
  ]
}

Token Efficiency

Operation	Raw JSON	Minimal JSON	Reduction
10 posts	~11,600 tokens	~1,200 tokens	90%
Post + 30 comments	~60,000 tokens	~1,500 tokens	97%
Search 10 results	~18,000 tokens	~1,200 tokens	93%

Limitations

• Public subreddits only (no private/quarantined)
• Rate limited to ~10 req/min without auth
• Read-only (no posting/voting)

Codex Integration

For Codex CLI, use the same commands:

reddit posts programming --limit 5
reddit search "topic" --limit 10

Output is JSON, easily parseable by any LLM.