reddit-mcp

Read Reddit from local MCP-compatible clients, including Claude Code, Codex, and ChatGPT Desktop, without an API key. No app registration, no account.

Reddit's data API is effectively closed. New apps need a stated moderation use case and manual approval, anonymous .json access is blocked, and the free tier that third-party tools were built on is gone. Most "Reddit for LLMs" integrations now start with a credentials dance you can't complete.

Reddit still publishes public Atom/RSS feeds for every subreddit, thread, user and search. This small local MCP server makes those feeds available as tools to compatible clients: browse a subreddit, read a thread and its comments, search across the site.

Those feeds are published to be fetched, which is why this keeps working. It reads a supported path in a format frozen since 2005, so there is no markup to break when Reddit ships its next redesign.

What you don't get: scores, upvote ratios, comment counts. Those exist only in the gated API, and nothing here fakes them. Titles, authors, timestamps, and the full text of posts and comments all come through.

Install

reddit-rss-mcp is on PyPI (the plain reddit-mcp name belongs to an unrelated project). You need uv on your machine; it handles Python and dependencies itself, and there is nothing else to set up.

Claude Code:

claude mcp add reddit --scope user -- uvx reddit-rss-mcp

Verify with claude mcp get reddit or claude mcp list. If Claude Code cannot find uvx, use its absolute path (which uvx) instead of the bare command.

Codex CLI:

codex mcp add reddit -- uvx reddit-rss-mcp

Verify with codex mcp list. To use a local checkout instead, run:

codex mcp add reddit -- uv --directory "$(pwd)" run server.py

Codex also supports a project-scoped .codex/config.toml, but this repository does not include one because it would configure and launch the server automatically for every trusted checkout.

ChatGPT Desktop: it shares MCP configuration with Codex, so the Codex command above also installs Reddit for ChatGPT Desktop. Restart the ChatGPT app, then use /mcp to see the connected server. You can also add it in Settings → MCP servers → Add server, choose STDIO, and enter uvx reddit-rss-mcp.

ChatGPT Work on the web: it does not read your local MCP configuration. It uses plugins and their remote MCP tools instead.

Claude Desktop, one click: download reddit-rss-mcp.mcpb from the latest release, then double-click it, drag it into Claude Desktop, or choose Settings → Extensions → Advanced settings → Install Extension. No JSON editing or absolute paths. (It runs uvx reddit-rss-mcp, so uv still needs to be on your PATH.)

Claude Desktop, manual local-server configuration: add this to ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json, using the absolute path from which uvx (the app doesn't inherit your shell PATH):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "reddit": {
      "command": "/absolute/path/to/uvx",
      "args": ["reddit-rss-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

If the file already has other top-level keys, add mcpServers alongside them rather than overwriting the file. Then:

1. Fully quit the app (Cmd+Q, not just closing the window). The running app rewrites this file, so an edit made while it's open can be discarded.
2. Relaunch. It may take a couple of restarts before the server registers.
3. Grant permission when the app prompts to run the server.

Cowork: install the .mcpb bundle above through Claude Desktop Extensions. Cowork does not load local servers from claude_desktop_config.json, so use the bundle rather than the manual configuration.

Tools

fetch_json is deliberately not a general web fetcher. URLs on other hosts are refused unless you start the server with REDDIT_MCP_ALLOW_ANY_URL=1, so an unrelated fetch tool doesn't sit in the client's tool list waiting to be picked at the wrong moment.

Other ways to install

From GitHub (latest main, no clone)

To run unreleased changes, point uvx at the repo and the reddit-rss-mcp entry point. Append @vX.Y.Z (or any tag) to pin a release instead of tracking main:

claude mcp add reddit --scope user -- uvx --from git+https://github.com/jorgen-k/reddit-mcp reddit-rss-mcp
codex mcp add reddit -- uvx --from git+https://github.com/jorgen-k/reddit-mcp reddit-rss-mcp

From a local clone

Prefer this if you want to edit the code:

git clone https://github.com/jorgen-k/reddit-mcp.git
cd reddit-mcp
claude mcp add reddit --scope user -- uv --directory "$(pwd)" run server.py
codex mcp add reddit -- uv --directory "$(pwd)" run server.py

For Claude Desktop, use the same config file as above, with absolute paths from which uv and pwd:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "reddit": {
      "command": "/absolute/path/to/uv",
      "args": ["--directory", "/absolute/path/to/reddit-mcp", "run", "server.py"]
    }
  }
}

Updating after a code change

The server is a long-lived process, spawned once when the client connects. Editing server.py does not hot-reload it; the running process keeps the old code until it's restarted.

• Claude Code: run /mcp, select reddit, and reconnect it (or restart Claude Code).
• Codex CLI: start a new Codex session. Use codex mcp list to confirm the configured server.
• ChatGPT Desktop: select Restart in Settings → MCP servers, or quit and relaunch the app.
• Claude Desktop or Cowork: fully quit the app (Cmd+Q) and relaunch.

Limits worth knowing

Read-only, public content only. Be considerate with request volume; these are public feeds.

No scores, vote counts, or comment counts. RSS doesn't carry them. For those you need Reddit's Data API, which now requires a moderation use case and approval.

Rate limiting. Reddit throttles unauthenticated RSS aggressively. On an HTTP 429 the server retries with backoff, honoring the Retry-After header when present and otherwise sleeping roughly 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128 seconds (plus jitter) across up to 7 retries. It also keeps a minimum gap between outbound requests to avoid tripping the limit in the first place. All tools share this.

Search is only as good as Reddit's search. search_reddit uses Reddit's own search engine; RSS is just the output format, so results match the website, not a separate weaker index. That engine has real limits:

• It doesn't search comment text, only post titles and bodies (and community names). A term that appears only in a comment won't be found.
• Very new posts lag, because indexing isn't instant. To catch brand-new posts reliably, use browse_subreddit(sort="new").
• It isn't exhaustive. Low-relevance results get dropped or buried.

So "no results" means Reddit's search didn't surface it, not that it was never posted.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.