🤖 Reddit MCP Server (AI-Native Edition)

A highly resilient, open-source Model Context Protocol (MCP) server. It empowers AI models (such as Claude and Cursor) to search, fetch, read, and deep-dive into Reddit content with robust rate-limiting recovery and smart comment-filtering.

Built in Python using FastMCP, this project adheres to a strict 4-Layer Architecture designed for high modularity, testability, and painless contributions.

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🗺️ How it Works (Data Flow Sequence)

Here is a visual sequence diagram showing how the AI model interacts with this server, including our Zero-Config Fallback system:

sequenceDiagram
    autonumber
    actor AI as AI Assistant (Claude/Cursor)
    participant MCP as FastMCP Server (STDIO)
    participant Tools as Application Tools
    participant Reddit as Reddit API (OAuth)
    participant Fallback as DDG & Arctic Shift

    AI->>MCP: Request (e.g., search_knowledge)
    MCP->>Tools: Route request
    Tools->>Reddit: Attempt Fetch (Resilient HTTP)
    alt Has OAuth Credentials & API Healthy
        Note over Reddit,Tools: Handles 429 (Rate Limits) with Retry-After backoff!
        Reddit-->>Tools: Return Official JSON payload
    else Zero-Config OR Reddit API Fails
        Note over Tools,Fallback: Graceful Degradation Active
        Tools->>Fallback: Execute Search / Fetch Archive
        Fallback-->>Tools: Return Alternative JSON payload
    end
    Tools->>Tools: Refine comments (filter bots & short noise)
    Tools-->>MCP: Map to Domain Models (Pydantic)
    MCP-->>AI: Return clean JSON-RPC Response (stdout-safe)

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✨ Features

• 🚀 Zero-Config Ready: Works completely out of the box! No Reddit API keys required. If credentials are not provided, it seamlessly falls back to DuckDuckGo and the Arctic Shift archive.
• 🛡️ Graceful Degradation: Intelligently switches between the official Reddit API and unauthenticated fallback providers without crashing, ensuring the LLM always gets data.
• 📈 Resilient HTTP Client: Built-in exponential backoff and rate-limiting recovery. If Reddit says 429 Too Many Requests, the server respects the Retry-After header and retries automatically.
• 🔍 Strategic Search: Integrates a decoupled search provider system (Strategy Pattern) allowing easy addition of custom search engines.
• 🤖 LLM-Safe Filtering: Cleans thread payloads by dropping auto-moderators, bot notifications, and low-quality comments, saving precious LLM token costs.
• ⏱️ Strict LLM Timeout Protection: Uses decorators to force safe API timeouts, returning clean graceful JSON-RPC fallbacks instead of hanging the AI client.

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🧰 Available Tools

Tool Name	Purpose	Best Used For
search_knowledge	Broad web search via DuckDuckGo	Finding technical explanations and factual discussions across Reddit.
explore_reddit_discussions	Discussion search with metrics	Gauging sentiment, upvote consensus, and topic exploration.
extract_public_opinion	Deep comment tree extraction & filtering	Reading high-quality community opinions with noise & bots removed.
analyze_niche_trends	Live trending & rising posts tracker	Identifying real-time problems, pain points, or new ideas in a niche.
get_saved_posts	The user's own saved posts over a time period	Revisiting, summarizing, or triaging bookmarked content (requires the saved-items feed URL).

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⚙️ Prerequisites & Setup

Requirements

• Python 3.11 or higher
• Reddit API App credentials (Optional, but recommended for live trending data & better rate limits)

Quick Start

You can run this server directly without installation using uvx (recommended) or pipx:

uvx reddit-mcp-ai
# OR
pipx run reddit-mcp-ai

2. Configure your environment (Optional):

To unlock the official Reddit API, Cookie Authentication, or Saved Posts, you can either inject environment variables via your MCP client config, or create a global configuration file at ~/.config/reddit-mcp-server/.env (Mac/Linux) or %APPDATA%\reddit-mcp-server\.env (Windows):

# Optional: Official Reddit App Credentials
REDDIT_CLIENT_ID="your_client_id_here"
REDDIT_CLIENT_SECRET="your_client_secret_here"

# Optional: Direct Cookie Auth (Instant sub-second access & pagination)
# Extract from DevTools -> Application -> Cookies -> reddit_session (Use an alt account)
REDDIT_SESSION_COOKIE="your_reddit_session_cookie_here"

# Optional: Concurrency & Rate Limiting Shields
REDDIT_MAX_CONCURRENCY=4
REDDIT_RATE_LIMIT_PER_MINUTE=40

Consider also setting REDDIT_USER_AGENT to a descriptive, unique value — Reddit's API guidelines ask for this, even in zero-config mode. If unset, the server generates a default with a random per-install suffix (persisted under your XDG state directory so it stays stable across restarts).

To enable the get_saved_posts tool, add your private saved-items feed URL:

REDDIT_SAVED_RSS_URL="https://www.reddit.com/user/YOUR_USERNAME/saved.rss?feed=YOUR_FEED_TOKEN&user=YOUR_USERNAME"

While logged in, open reddit.com/prefs/feeds/ and copy the exact link for "your saved links". The feed token is a credential for your account — treat it like a password (the server never logs it and rejects non-Reddit hosts). The feed exposes the most recent ~100 saved items; scores and comment counts are not available through it.

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🐳 Docker Installation

A multi-stage Dockerfile is provided for seamless execution.

docker build -t reddit-mcp-server .

Note: If using Docker, replace the command in client configs with docker and arguments with run -i --rm reddit-mcp-server.

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🛠️ Configuration for AI Clients

1. Claude Desktop

Edit your configuration file:

• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
• Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

Simple / Zero-Config Setup (Recommended):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "reddit": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": [
        "reddit-mcp-ai"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Full Setup with Optional Features (OAuth & Saved Posts):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "reddit": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": [
        "reddit-mcp-ai"
      ],
      "env": {
        "REDDIT_CLIENT_ID": "your_client_id_here",
        "REDDIT_CLIENT_SECRET": "your_client_secret_here",
        "REDDIT_SAVED_RSS_URL": "your_feed_url_here"
      }
    }
  }
}

2. Cursor / OpenCode

Go to Settings > Features > MCP and add a new command-based server:

• Type: command
• Name: Reddit
• Command: uvx reddit-mcp-ai
• Env: (Optional) Add REDDIT_SAVED_RSS_URL and your feed link here if you want to use the saved posts feature.

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🧪 Developer Experience (DX) & Testing

We prioritize high test coverage. We mock all network traffic, ensuring tests run instantly and reliably.

Run Tests

# Install development dependencies
pip install -e ".[dev]"

# Execute pytest
pytest tests/

Manual Testing with the MCP Inspector

npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector uvx reddit-mcp-ai

This will launch a web browser UI where you can invoke the search_knowledge, explore_reddit_discussions, extract_public_opinion, and analyze_niche_trends tools directly and inspect the JSON responses.

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🤝 Contributing & Architecture

We love contributions! Please check out docs/architecture.md for architectural details and view src/reddit_mcp/infrastructure/search/providers/README.md to learn how to add a new search provider in seconds.

Please make sure your PR passes all linter checks (ruff check .) and unit tests (pytest tests/) before submitting.