threadsift

Ask Reddit questions without an API key.
Find the right threads, read every comment with its score, and see what people actually agree on,
from your terminal or from an AI agent like Claude Code.

Install · Use it · AI agents · How it compares · How it works

---

What is threadsift?

Reddit is where people tell you what actually happened: which tool broke, which setup worked, what they'd buy again. Getting at it programmatically has become hard. Anonymous .json access now returns 403, new API keys need Reddit's approval, and most "no key" Reddit tools quietly stopped working in 2026.

threadsift is a single Python file that still gets you real Reddit data, with no key, no login and no browser. It asks Reddit's public feeds which threads matter, then pulls the full threads, scores and history from the Arctic Shift archive. It also ships as an agent skill, so Claude Code (or any agent that loads SKILL.md folders) can research Reddit for you and cite what it found.

What it does

• 🔎 Finds the threads that matter. Reddit's own relevance search and rankings, with scores and comment counts.
• 💬 Reads whole conversations. Nested comments with scores, the original poster marked, and comment links open just that sub-thread.
• 🧭 Searches inside communities. Find every comment mentioning X across several subreddits.
• 🔗 Traces a link. Where on Reddit was this article, repo or video discussed?
• 👤 Checks people. Karma, all-time active subreddits and recent posts, to spot experts and shills.
• 📈 Shows trends. Is a subreddit growing? Is a topic getting more attention, and who's driving it?
• 🖼️ Looks at the media. Downloads images and galleries, turns videos into still frames, and transcribes speech with local Whisper.
• 🤖 Fits LLM context. Compact markdown by default, --format json when you want raw data.

Install

Requirements: Python 3.10 or newer. That's it; threadsift uses only the standard library.

git clone https://github.com/hamgarian/threadsift
cd threadsift
python threadsift.py doctor        # checks Reddit's feeds and the archive are reachable

Optional extras:

• ffmpeg to turn videos into still frames.
• uv for --transcribe. It installs Whisper on first use; the model is about 480 MB.

Use it

1. Find threads about your question

python threadsift.py find "secrets manager docker" --sub selfhosted

- 1s2f17m [370↑ 91💬] r/selfhosted 2026-03-24: Komodo 🦎 Container manager 🦎 v2: Docker Swarm
- 1thrv82 [93↑ 60💬] r/selfhosted 2026-05-19: [ Removed by moderator ]
- 1vuaqh5 [783↑ 204💬] r/selfhosted 2026-08-21: Put Self Hosting on Your CV
- 1ogtyds [60↑ 30💬] r/selfhosted 2025-10-26: Managing Secrets and Credentials in Docker: Best Practices

2. Read the ones that look useful

python threadsift.py thread 1ogtyds --max-comments 60

# Managing Secrets and Credentials in Docker: Best Practices
r/selfhosted · u/SudoMason · 2025-10-26 · score 60 · 30 comments · https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/1ogtyds/...

## Comments

- [41] u/LGX550: I opted for Infisical (self hosted) ...
  - [6] u/SudoMason (OP): Hey, that seems pretty cool. Can you link me to this service?
    - [3] u/xaijian: Try SOPS/age. Integrates nicely if you use terragrunt.

3. Go deeper as needed

python threadsift.py search --kind comments --sub selfhosted,homelab --query vaultwarden   # who mentions it?
python threadsift.py top ClaudeAI LocalLLaMA --time day                                   # today's top posts
python threadsift.py links https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent                   # where was it posted?
python threadsift.py user spez                                                            # who is this?
python threadsift.py trend --sub hermesagent                                              # is it growing?
python threadsift.py media 1x8lalp --transcribe                                           # what's in the post's media?

All commands

Command	What it answers
find "<query>" [--sub S]	Which threads are about this? Relevance-ranked, with scores and comment counts
thread <url|id> ...	What did people say? Nested comments with scores; a comment link shows just that sub-thread
search --kind comments --sub a,b --query Q	Who mentioned X in these communities?
top <subs...> [--sort hot|new|rising|controversial]	What matters today here? All subreddits in one request
latest <sub>	What's new in this subreddit?
links <url>	Where on Reddit was this article, repo or video discussed?
user <name>	Is this commenter credible?
trend --sub S [--query Q]	Is this community or topic growing? Who drives it?
media <url|id> [--comments] [--transcribe]	What's in the image, gallery or video?
subs [prefix] [--query topic], rules, wiki	Which communities exist, and what are their rules and FAQs?
doctor	Is everything reachable right now?

Every listing takes --min-comments, --min-score, --media any|none|image|gif|video|gallery and --no-nsfw. Add --format json to any command for raw data. Run python threadsift.py <command> --help for every option.

Commands that ask Reddit itself (find, top, doctor) can pause for up to a minute. Reddit allows one feed request per minute per IP, and threadsift waits its turn instead of getting blocked. Everything else answers in seconds, and results are cached for an hour.

Use it from an AI agent

threadsift is also a ready-made agent skill. For Claude Code, clone it into your skills folder:

git clone https://github.com/hamgarian/threadsift ~/.claude/skills/threadsift

Then just ask:

"What does Reddit think of Bitwarden Secrets Manager for a homelab?" "Find real-world experiences with running Qwen locally on a 6 GB GPU." "Summarize this thread and tell me if the top answer is right: https://www.reddit.com/r/..."

The skill tells the agent which commands to run, how to stay inside the rate limit, when to look at an image or video instead of guessing from the title, and to cite permalinks. Other agents that load SKILL.md folders work the same way.

How it compares

The same 9 research tasks, run without credentials against every keyless Reddit tool I could find that runs:

	Passed	Scores in results	Nested comments	Media
threadsift	9/9	✅	✅	✅
Hermes Agent reddit-reading	6/9	❌	❌	❌
arctic-shift-mcp	2/9	✅	✅	❌
reddit-mcp-buddy (no key)	1/9	❌	❌	❌
reddit-no-auth-mcp-server	0/9	—	—	—

Per-task results, method and caveats

Task	threadsift	Hermes reddit-reading	arctic-shift-mcp	reddit-mcp-buddy	reddit-no-auth-mcp-server
Search all of Reddit	✅ 10 results, all with scores	✅ 10, no scores	❌ needs a subreddit	❌ forbidden	❌
Search one subreddit	✅ 10, all with scores	✅ 10, no scores	❌ archive timeout ×2	❌	❌
Read a thread	✅ 43 comments, nested, scores	✅ 37, flat, no scores	✅ 43, scores	❌	❌
Top posts of the week	✅ matches Reddit's ranking, scores	✅ matches, no scores	❌ returned newest, not top	✅ matches, no scores	❌
User activity	✅ 20 items + karma + all-time subs	✅ 10, no scores	✅ 10 posts	❌	❌
Get a gallery's 4 images	✅ 4 downloaded	❌	❌	❌	❌
Where a GitHub repo was posted	✅ 9 posts	✅ 8 posts	—	❌	❌
Subreddit growth by month	✅ 8 months	—	—	—	—
Open a link to one comment	✅ that sub-thread only	❌ whole thread	❌ whole thread	❌	❌

• Run on 2026-10-18, one machine, no credentials, identical inputs. Competitor tasks that failed were retried once after a 90-second pause (threadsift had no failures). The tools share one IP's Reddit allowance, so they ran one at a time.
• I picked the tasks, and the last four test features threadsift was built to have. Read those rows as "can it do this at all". The first five are plain research tasks every tool claims to handle.
• Hermes and reddit-mcp-buddy say in their READMEs that they get scores and deeper threads with an approved Reddit app. I didn't test that.
• Versions: Hermes reddit-reading @ d76cce4, arctic-shift-mcp 1.0.2, reddit-mcp-buddy 1.1.14, reddit-no-auth-mcp-server from PyPI on the same day. reddit-no-auth-mcp-server crashed on install as its README describes, then failed every call. Hermes's script crashed on Windows printing emoji until UTF-8 output was forced; that isn't counted against it (error log).
• Pass rules: bench/summarize.py. Scores as computed: bench/scores-2026-10-18.md. Raw outputs aren't published because they contain other people's Reddit posts; bench/run.sh regenerates them.

How it works

Since Reddit's 2025-2026 lockdown, anonymous reddit.com/*.json returns 403, old.reddit redirects to a login page (probe log), and new API apps need approval under Reddit's Responsible Builder Policy. Two keyless paths still work, and threadsift combines them:

1. Reddit's public RSS feeds decide which threads. You get Reddit's own relevance search and rankings. The limit is exactly one request per clock minute per IP (blocked requests don't count against it), so threadsift waits for the next minute, even across separate processes, and packs each call: up to 100 results, many subreddits at once.
2. The Arctic Shift archive says what's in them. It's a free, independent Reddit archive that captured new posts and comments 11-21 seconds after posting in our probe. One batched call adds scores, comment counts and post bodies; other calls fetch nested comment trees, users, subreddit history and "who linked this URL".

Have an approved Reddit app? Set REDDIT_CLIENT_ID and REDDIT_CLIENT_SECRET, and thread, search and latest switch to the official API for live vote counts. I couldn't test that path.

Limits

• Archive scores are snapshots. Posts under ~2 days old often show 1↑, but Reddit's own ranking order is still right.
• No comment search across all of Reddit at once (the archive needs a subreddit, author or thread).
• Many Reddit clips are silent or get removed; --transcribe says so. In the probe, 9 of 10 sampled videos had reachable audio, and the one that didn't had been removed.
• Arctic Shift is run by one person, for free, with no uptime guarantee. threadsift paces and caches its requests; please don't hammer it. For bulk analysis (whole subreddits, years of data), use its data dumps.

Development

python test_threadsift.py                                            # offline self-check
bash bench/clean_clone.sh https://github.com/hamgarian/threadsift     # the 9 tasks from a fresh clone
bash bench/run.sh                                                    # full comparison (slow: rate-limit waits)

Logs from the release checks: clean clone, transcription, probe.

License

MIT. Not affiliated with Reddit or Arctic Shift.