reddit-mcp

A small local MCP server that lets Claude read Reddit (and other JSON endpoints), refining the responses down to the fields that matter.

How it reaches Reddit: Reddit gates its Data API (new apps require a moderation use case + approval) and blocks anonymous .json access, but it still publishes public Atom/RSS feeds for reading content. This server uses those — so it needs no account, no app, no API key, no login.

Trade-off: RSS carries title, author, link, timestamp, and full post/comment text, but not scores, upvote ratios, or comment counts (those only live in the gated API).

Tools

| Tool | What it does | |------|--------------| | browse_subreddit(subreddit, sort="hot", time_filter="day", limit=25) | Posts from a subreddit (hot/new/top/rising/controversial). | | get_post(url, comment_limit=50) | A post plus its comments (flat list — RSS doesn't expose the reply tree). | | search_reddit(query, subreddit=None, sort="relevance", time_filter="all", limit=25) | Search Reddit, optionally scoped to one subreddit. | | fetch_json(url) | Reddit URLs → the .rss feed (refined); other URLs → fetched as-is, falling back to the .json convention. |

Requirements

uv — handles Python + deps. uv run server.py provisions an isolated env from pyproject.toml on first run. No other setup.

Install

Clone it somewhere first:

git clone https://github.com/jorgen-k/reddit-mcp.git
cd reddit-mcp

Claude Code

claude mcp add reddit -s user -- uv --directory "$(pwd)" run server.py

Verify with claude mcp list (should show reddit: ✓ Connected). If Claude can't find uv, use its absolute path (which uv) instead of bare uv.

Claude Desktop

Add this under the top-level "mcpServers" key in your claude_desktop_config.json (macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/). Use absolute paths — Desktop doesn't inherit your shell PATH, so run which uv and pwd and paste the results in:

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

Restart Claude Desktop to load it.

Cowork (install the plugin)

Cowork's Custom Connectors are dialed from Anthropic's cloud, so a localhost URL can never reach a server on your machine — no tunnel or cert fixes that. The supported way to run a local MCP server in Cowork is a plugin that runs on-device.

Install the prebuilt plugin:

Grab reddit-mcp.plugin from this repo (it bundles the stdio server).
Open it with Cowork / install it from Cowork's plugins UI and accept it.

uv must be installed and on your PATH. If Cowork can't find it, edit the plugin's .mcp.json and replace "uv" with the absolute path from which uv.

The plugin source lives in plugin/reddit-mcp/. Rebuild the .plugin with:
cd plugin/reddit-mcp && zip -rq ../../reddit-mcp.plugin . \
  -x ".venv/*" "__pycache__/*" "*.pyc" "uv.lock"

Remote / hosted (optional)

The server can also run over streamable-HTTP for a publicly hosted deployment (a Custom Connector can reach a real https:// URL, just not localhost):

uv run server.py --http        # http://127.0.0.1:9090/mcp

Set REDDIT_MCP_HOST / REDDIT_MCP_PORT to change the bind address, and REDDIT_MCP_CERTFILE / REDDIT_MCP_KEYFILE to serve HTTPS directly. This is only useful if you expose it on a public host with a real certificate; for local use, prefer the plugin (Cowork) or stdio (Claude Code) above.

Notes

Read-only, public content only.
No scores/vote counts/comment counts (RSS limitation). For those you'd need Reddit's Data API, which now requires a moderation use case + approval.
Be considerate with request volume — these are public feeds.

MCP Servers