Automate Reddit

What I mean by automating Reddit

Automating Reddit means a bot does the parts of Reddit that are mechanical, not the parts that need a human voice. Watching a set of subreddits for a keyword or a mention, scraping posts and comments into a sheet for research, pulling your own post performance, and handling routine upkeep on the account you actually use. The posting and replying that matters is still you. The repetitive watching and gathering is what a bot takes on.

Reddit's communities are the real moderators

Most platforms enforce their rules from the top. Reddit enforces from the bottom too. Every subreddit has its own rules, an automod that acts on them, and a crowd of people who downvote and report anything that reads as automated or promotional. You can stay inside the sitewide rules and still get buried by the community in an hour.

So the honest version of Reddit automation is narrow. Monitor and scrape all you like, that is just reading. But for posting, commenting, and voting, a bot that mass-produces them gets you shadowbanned and disliked into nothing. Genuine participation stays human, on your own account, respecting each subreddit's rules. The bot watches and gathers, you do the talking.

Who this is for

This is for the person who uses Reddit for real and wants the mechanical parts handled. A marketer monitoring mentions of their brand, a researcher gathering posts on a topic, a community member tracking a few subreddits, a creator checking how their own posts did. You participate genuinely and want a bot for the watching and gathering, not for faking a presence. No-coders and coders both, since you can build it without code and drop into code when you want.

How I'd approach it

Lean on the reading side. Point the bot at the subreddits you care about, scrape the posts and comments that match what you are watching for, and pull them into a sheet you can scan. Keep posting and commenting human, your account, your words, within each subreddit's rules. If you do automate a post, make it one you would have written anyway, and never at volume.

Watch and gather with the bot, talk as yourself. I would lay out the first draft with Build with description.

Automate Reddit from a description

Describe what you watch for in plain words in the Chrome extension and it builds the steps for you. Give it a few short lines, check what it made, and run it. Explore no-code. Note: Build from description is coming very soon. In the meantime you can still use the no-code builder.

Automate Reddit in code

Build with code. If you would rather script it yourself, this is the path. Explore code

import { chromium } from "playwright";

const browser = await chromium.connectOverCDP(
  `wss://cdp-lb.axiom.ai/?token=${process.env.AXIOM_API_KEY}`
);

try {
  const context = browser.contexts()[0];
  const page = context.pages()[0] ?? await context.newPage();

  // old.reddit.com is simpler to read than the new layout
  await page.goto("https://old.reddit.com/r/yoursubreddit/new/");
  await page.waitForSelector(".thing");

  // Read the new posts off the page
  const posts = await page.$$eval(".thing", els =>
    els.map(el => ({
      title:  el.querySelector("a.title")?.textContent.trim(),
      author: el.querySelector(".author")?.textContent.trim(),
      link:   el.querySelector("a.title")?.getAttribute("href"),
    }))
  );

  // Keep only the ones that mention what you are watching for
  const matches = posts.filter(p => p.title?.toLowerCase().includes("axiom"));
  console.log(matches); // write these to your sheet
} finally {
  await browser.close();
}

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Build with a Claude skill

Build no-code or code bots with a skill.

Add the Claude skill and describe what you watch for or gather. It builds the bot for you, no-code or code, monitoring subreddits and scraping the matches into a sheet.

Install the skillLearn more

What can you automate?

The watching and gathering, mostly. A couple of lines to stay on the right side of.

What I'd watch out for

Reddit is built to spot and punish bots, so read this one carefully. Here is what I would watch for.

The community decides

You can follow every sitewide rule and still get buried. Each subreddit has its own rules and a crowd that downvotes anything that smells automated. Read the rules of the subreddit before you post anything, and keep posting human.

Never touch the votes

Automated voting, or anything that nudges votes, is vote manipulation, and it is one of the fastest ways to get an account banned sitewide. Do not go near it.

Use old.reddit for scraping

The old layout at old.reddit.com is lighter and easier to read than the new one. Point the scraper there, pick the fields with the selector tool, and go at a reasonable pace, and you will catch fewer bot checks.

Keep posting human and rare

If you automate a post or comment at all, make it one you would have written yourself, on your own account, and never at volume. A bot that floods is a bot that gets shadowbanned.