reddit-cli

Consistent, browserless Reddit reading with no app registration. Two things make it work (both are required — this is the hard-won recipe):

1. Full logged-in cookie (reddit_session + token_v2 + loid + …, ~9 cookies). A lone reddit_session gets Reddit's "Blocked" page.
2. curl_cffi with impersonate="chrome" — Reddit blocks non-browser TLS fingerprints (plain urllib/curl → 403/302/SPA HTML). Impersonation defeats that.

With both, www.reddit.com's .json endpoints return the real personalized JSON. (Anonymous .json and old.reddit.com/.json are dead now — don't use them.)

Invoke

~/.config/reddit-cli/reddit-cli <command> [flags]

Commands

Command	Purpose
post <ref>	A post + comment tree. <ref> = full URL, /comments/<id>, t3_<id>, redd.it/<id>, or bare id.
feed	Home feed (subscribed). Default sort best.
sub <name>	A subreddit listing (r/ prefix optional).
me	Auth check (whoami + karma).
set-cookie	Store a cookie / Copy-as-cURL from stdin (parses cookie + User-Agent).

Global: --json. post: --sort {top,confidence,new,controversial,old,qa}, --depth N (4), --comments N (40, by score), --comment-max N, --body-max N. feed: --sort {best,hot,new,top,rising,controversial} (best). sub: --sort {hot,new,top,rising,controversial} (hot). Both: --time (top/controversial), --limit N (25), --body-max N (500), --full.

Examples

~/.config/reddit-cli/reddit-cli feed --limit 20
~/.config/reddit-cli/reddit-cli sub LocalLLaMA --sort top --time week
~/.config/reddit-cli/reddit-cli post https://www.reddit.com/r/x/comments/abc123/title/
~/.config/reddit-cli/reddit-cli --json feed --limit 40   # for parsing / the digest layer

Output shape

• Listings: N. [+score·ratio] title (kind) — r/sub · u/author · Nc · age · id=… {flair} [tags], optional link line, indented selftext excerpt.
• Post: header, # title, body, then a score-sorted, depth/count-capped comment tree (indent = depth; u/x(OP), [MOD] markers). kind:"more" stubs are dropped.
• --json: normalized dicts (id/fullname/title/author/subreddit/score/upvote_ratio/num_comments/ created_utc/age/permalink/url/is_self/selftext/selftext_len/domain/flair/over_18/spoiler/stickied; post adds nested comments + comments_shown).

Setup / cookie refresh

The cookie expires eventually; when me/feed start returning 403, re-capture:

1. reddit.com logged in → DevTools → Network → filter Doc → Cmd+R.
2. Click the top www.reddit.com document request (must contain reddit_session) → right-click → Copy → Copy as cURL.
3. In a real terminal (Terminal.app — Claude's shell has an isolated clipboard, pbpaste there sees nothing): pbpaste | ~/.config/reddit-cli/reddit-cli set-cookie — parses the full cookie + matching UA, verifies via me, writes config.

Alternative: paste the cURL into ~/.config/reddit-cli/curl.txt and import it.

Files

• ~/.claude/skills/reddit-cli/reddit_cli.py — CLI + importable RedditClient, fetch_post/fetch_feed/fetch_subreddit/fetch_me.
• ~/.config/reddit-cli/config.json — {cookie, user_agent}, chmod 600.
• ~/.config/reddit-cli/venv/ — venv with curl_cffi (required) + browser_cookie3.
• ~/.config/reddit-cli/reddit-cli — launcher shim.

Roadmap

Digest layer (planned): build a RedditClient, call fetch_feed/fetch_subreddit (or read --json), summarize per post/subreddit, emit a short brief. Keep the JSON schema stable — it's the contract.