Reddit post

--- name: reddit-fetch description: Fetch content from Reddit using Gemini CLI or curl JSON API fallback. Use when accessing Reddit URLs, researching topics on Reddit, or when Reddit returns 403/blocked errors. --- # Reddit Fetch ## Method 1: Gemini CLI (Try First) Use Gemini CLI via tmux. It can browse, summarize, and answer complex questions about Reddit content. Pick a unique session name (e.g., gemini_abc123) and use it consistently throughout. ### Setup ``bash tmux new-session -d -s <session_name> -x 200 -y 50 tmux send-keys -t <session_name> 'gemini -m gemini-3-pro-preview' Enter sleep 3 # wait for Gemini CLI to load ` ### Send query and capture output `bash tmux send-keys -t <session_name> 'Your Reddit query here' Enter sleep 30 # wait for response (adjust as needed, up to 90s for complex searches) tmux capture-pane -t <session_name> -p -S -500 # capture output ` If the captured output shows an API error (e.g., quota exceeded, model unavailable), kill the session and retry without the -m flag (just gemini with no model argument). This falls back to the default model. ### How to tell if Enter was sent Look for YOUR QUERY TEXT specifically. Is it inside or outside the bordered box? **Enter NOT sent** - your query is INSIDE the box: ` ╭─────────────────────────────────────╮ │ > Your actual query text here │ ╰─────────────────────────────────────╯ ` **Enter WAS sent** - your query is OUTSIDE the box, followed by activity: ` > Your actual query text here ⠋ Our hamsters are working... (processing) ╭────────────────────────────────────────────╮ │ > Type your message or @path/to/file │ ╰────────────────────────────────────────────╯ ` Note: The empty prompt Type your message or @path/to/file always appears in the box - that's normal. What matters is whether YOUR query text is inside or outside the box. If your query is inside the box, run tmux send-keys -t <session_name> Enter to submit. ### Cleanup when done `bash tmux kill-session -t <session_name> ` ### If Gemini fails completely If retrying without -m also fails, fall back to Method 2 below. --- ## Method 2: curl with Reddit JSON API (Fallback) Reddit's public JSON API works by appending .json to any Reddit URL. Use this when Gemini is unavailable (quota exhausted, API errors, etc.). ### Listing hot/new/top posts `bash curl -s -L -H "User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/120.0.0.0 Safari/537.36" \ "https://old.reddit.com/r/SUBREDDIT/hot.json?limit=15" ` Replace hot with new, top, or rising as needed. For top, add &t=day (or week, month, year, all). ### Fetching a specific post + comments `bash curl -s -L -H "User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/120.0.0.0 Safari/537.36" \ "https://old.reddit.com/r/SUBREDDIT/comments/POST_ID.json?limit=20" ` The response is a JSON array: [0] is the post, [1] is the comment tree. ### Searching within a subreddit `bash curl -s -L -H "User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/120.0.0.0 Safari/537.36" \ "https://old.reddit.com/r/SUBREDDIT/search.json?q=QUERY&restrict_sr=on&sort=new&limit=15" ` ### Parsing the JSON Use jq to extract what you need: `bash # List posts curl -s -L -o /tmp/reddit_result.txt -w "%{http_code}" \ -H "User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/120.0.0.0 Safari/537.36" \ 'https://old.reddit.com/r/SUBREDDIT/hot.json?limit=15' jq -r '.data.children[] | .data | "\(.title)\n \(.score) pts | \(.num_comments) comments | u/\(.author) | id: \(.id)\n"' /tmp/reddit_result.txt # List comments from a specific post (the [1] element has comments) jq -r '.[1].data.children[] | select(.kind == "t1") | .data | "u/\(.author) (\(.score) pts):\n \(.body[:300])\n"' /tmp/reddit_thread.txt ` Key details: - Fetch to temp file first, then parse - avoids pipe-related encoding issues - -o /tmp/file and -w "%{http_code}" saves the response and prints the HTTP status (useful for debugging empty responses) - -L follows redirects (old.reddit.com sometimes redirects) - Single-quoted URL avoids shell interpretation of & in query strings - .body[:300] truncates long comment bodies (jq 1.7+) ### Rate limiting Reddit's JSON API rate-limits aggressively: - **Don't fire parallel requests.** Make them sequentially with sleep 2 or sleep 3` between each. - If a request returns empty (0 bytes), wait 3-5 seconds and retry. - If you get HTTP 429, back off for 10-15 seconds. - A good pattern: fetch one search result listing, parse it, then fetch individual threads one at a time with delays.