Reddit MCP Buddy

What karanb192/reddit-mcp-buddy MCP server does

karanb192/reddit-mcp-buddy MCP server gives an MCP-compatible AI assistant access to selected Reddit reading and analysis tasks. It can retrieve posts from a subreddit, search Reddit, fetch a post with comments, inspect a user's activity, and explain common Reddit terms such as karma, AMA, and ELI5.

The server is intended for research, discussion monitoring, and context gathering rather than posting or moderating. Its responses include post content and metadata. Depending on the access mode, engagement fields such as score, comment count, and upvote ratio may be available.

How it works

Without credentials, the server's default anonymous mode supports browse_subreddit and the offline reddit_explain tool. Subreddit results are then obtained from Reddit's public RSS feed and include data_source: "rss". In that mode, score, comment count, upvote ratio, and NSFW values are null, so those fields should not be used to infer popularity or filtering results.

Adding Reddit credentials switches requests to Reddit's API. App-only authentication uses a client ID and secret, while authenticated mode also uses a Reddit username and password. The documented rate limits are 10 requests per minute for anonymous access, 60 for app-only access, and 100 for authenticated access. The 100-request limit requires a Reddit script application and all four credentials.

For post details, the server accepts a Reddit URL or post ID. Supplying only a post ID requires an additional lookup to determine the subreddit; providing the subreddit as well reduces the operation to one API call. URLs from Reddit's standard, old, new, mobile, no-participation, and short-link formats are supported.

Setup and configuration

The simplest Claude Desktop setup is the downloadable reddit-mcp-buddy.mcpb extension from the project's latest GitHub release. The npm configuration runs the package with npx -y reddit-mcp-buddy, and the same command is documented for other MCP clients. Claude Code can register the server with its stdio transport using that npm command.

Optional Reddit credentials can be placed in the MCP client's environment configuration:

• REDDIT_CLIENT_ID
• REDDIT_CLIENT_SECRET
• REDDIT_USERNAME
• REDDIT_PASSWORD

To create credentials, the README directs users to Reddit's app preferences and specifies a script application. Passwords used by the OAuth exchange are kept in memory; authentication data created through the server's CLI setup is stored locally in ~/.reddit-mcp-buddy/auth.json.

Tools and capabilities

The karanb192/reddit-mcp-buddy MCP server exposes these tools:

• browse_subreddit: Retrieves hot, new, top, rising, or controversial posts from all, popular, or a named subreddit. Top and controversial sorting can use a time range.
• search_reddit: Searches all Reddit or selected subreddits, with filters for author, time, and flair and sorting by relevance, hot, top, new, or comments. Credentials are required.
• get_post_details: Returns a post and its comments, with options for comment sorting, depth, and link extraction. Credentials are required.
• user_analysis: Reports a user's karma, posts, comments, and active subreddits. Credentials are required.
• reddit_explain: Provides a term's definition, origin, usage, and examples without requiring Reddit credentials.

Limitations and notes

Anonymous RSS access is subject to Reddit's logged-out feed throttling and may be slower than the server-side limit. The anonymous mode also cannot apply the include_nsfw filter. Search, comments, user analysis, and full API metrics depend on credentials. The project states that it does not collect analytics or usage telemetry, and that Reddit data flows between the user's machine, Reddit, and the AI assistant.

The project is released under the MIT license.