reddit-data-mcp

Reddit Data MCP

MCP server for accessing Reddit posts and comments. Searches across subreddits, fetches comment threads, and returns structured data ready for downstream analysis.

No API keys required. Uses a hybrid backend:

• Arctic-Shift — archival backend for subreddit-scoped searches (no rate limits)
• Reddit .json — live Reddit data for global searches (rate-limited to ~3 req/min)

Install as Claude Code Plugin

# Add the marketplace (one-time)
claude plugin marketplace add rrajasek95/reddit-data-mcp

# Install the plugin
claude plugin install reddit-data-mcp@reddit-data-mcp

Manual Setup

git clone https://github.com/rrajasek95/reddit-data-mcp.git
cd reddit-data-mcp/server
uv sync
uv run python server.py

Or add to .claude/settings.json:

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

Tool

One tool: search

search(query, subreddit?, sort="score", time_filter="all", limit=10, include_comments=False, comments_per_post=5, max_text=2000)

Always provide a subreddit when possible — this routes through Arctic-Shift (fast, no rate limits). Omitting subreddit forces a rate-limited global Reddit search.

Parameters:

Parameter	Default	Description
query	required	Search terms (empty string to browse a subreddit)
subreddit	all	Target subreddit (strongly recommended)
sort	score	score, num_comments, or created_utc
time_filter	all	all, day, week, month, year
limit	10	Number of posts (1-100)
include_comments	False	Fetch top comments per post
comments_per_post	5	Comments per post when enabled
max_text	2000	Max chars for post/comment text (0 = no limit)

How It Works

• Subreddit-scoped searches hit Arctic-Shift first. Results are overfetched and re-ranked by a synthetic popularity score (log(num_comments + 1) × upvote_ratio) since archival scores are ingest-time snapshots. Falls back to Reddit .json if Arctic-Shift returns nothing.
• Global searches (no subreddit) go directly to Reddit's .json API with a token-bucket rate limiter (3 req/min, random jitter).
• Comments are fetched from Reddit .json (live scores) when rate budget allows, otherwise from Arctic-Shift.

Each result includes a Source: reddit or Source: arctic-shift indicator.

Acknowledgements

• Arctic-Shift — Reddit archival project providing the search API and data dumps
• FastMCP — Python framework for building MCP servers
• httpx — HTTP client library
• Claude Code — Anthropic's CLI tool (plugin target)

License

MIT