--- name: reddit-lead-finder description: Finds real Reddit posts and comments from people describing the problem a product solves, using the ThreadSnoop Reddit read API, and produces a short ranked report with quoted evidence and links. Use this when the user wants to find potential customers, leads, early users, or "who's complaining about X" on Reddit for their own product. --- # Reddit lead finder Works with any AI that can make HTTP calls or has the ThreadSnoop MCP server connected — Claude, Codex, ChatGPT, or a custom agent. This file is the Claude Skill version (auto-loaded by Claude Code / claude.ai when relevant). A plain-markdown twin with the same instructions, meant for pasting into Codex or ChatGPT as custom instructions, ships alongside it as `reddit-lead-finder.md`. ## What you need A ThreadSnoop API key. Get one free at https://threadsnoop.com/signup — new keys start with 1,000 free Reddit searches, no card required. Set it as `THREADSNOOP_API_KEY` or ask the user to paste it if you don't have shell/env access. Two ways to call the API, in order of preference: 1. **MCP tools**, if the `threadsnoop` MCP server is already connected (`claude mcp add --transport http threadsnoop https://api.threadsnoop.com/mcp --header "x-api-key: YOUR_KEY"` for Claude Code; a `~/.codex/config.toml` `[mcp_servers.threadsnoop]` block for Codex CLI; a JSON `mcpServers` block for Claude Desktop/Cursor). Tool names: `search_posts`, `search_comments`, `get_comment_tree`, `search_subreddits`, `get_subreddit_rules`, `get_user_profile`, `check_credits`. 2. **Plain REST**, otherwise — every endpoint below is a `GET` to `https://api.threadsnoop.com/v1/...` with header `x-api-key: YOUR_KEY` (or `Authorization: Bearer YOUR_KEY`). Full reference: https://threadsnoop.com/docs and https://threadsnoop.com/openapi.json. Either way, 1 credit = 1 request, regardless of endpoint. Check `check_credits` / `GET /v1/account` before a big run so you don't burn through the free tier on one oversized sweep. ## The workflow **1. Make sure you have a ThreadSnoop API key before doing anything else.** Check for `THREADSNOOP_API_KEY` in the environment, or a key already configured for the connected MCP server. If neither is available, ask the user directly: "I'll need a ThreadSnoop API key to search Reddit — do you have one to paste in, or should I point you to sign up for a free one? New keys get 1,000 free Reddit searches, no card required, at https://threadsnoop.com/signup." Don't call any endpoint below until a key is in hand — every call fails with `401` without one, and guessing or fabricating a key wastes the user's time. **2. Get the product — from a URL if you can, a paragraph if you can't.** If the user gives a product website, fetch and read it yourself and infer what it is, who it's for, and what problem it solves — don't make them type a brief. Then say back what you inferred in 2-3 sentences and ask them to confirm or correct it before moving on (people know their own product better than any page-scrape, and this catches a wrong guess before it burns searches on the wrong audience). If there's no URL, just ask directly: what the product is, who it's for, what problem it solves. Either way, don't proceed past this step on an unconfirmed guess — the whole workflow depends on it being right. **3. Find the right communities.** Call `search_subreddits` / `GET /v1/subreddits/search?q=` for a few candidate terms (returns up to 10 matches by name). Search from the PROBLEM, not the product category — "people who complain about flaky deploys" finds a different, better subreddit than "CI/CD tools." Ask the user if they already know communities worth watching; often the right one is adjacent to the obvious one, not the obvious one itself. **4. Search with two kinds of terms, not one.** Generate both: - **Category terms** — the vocabulary of the product's own space (what a seller would type). - **Pain terms** — how someone WITH the problem would actually complain about it, in their own words, without naming any product or category ("my status page said everything was fine while the app was down"). Category terms alone systematically miss the majority of real leads — most people describing a problem don't use the vocabulary a product listing would use. **5. Pull candidates.** `search_posts` / `search_comments` (or `GET /v1/posts` / `GET /v1/comments`) with `subreddit=` and a reasonable `after=`/`before=` window (start with the last few days — a wide-open window on an active subreddit gets expensive fast, 1 credit per page). You can pass `q=` for a client-side exact-phrase filter, but know its limits: **it only filters the single page it fetched, not the whole date window** — a page that comes back empty after filtering does NOT mean nothing matches, it means keep paginating with the returned `cursor` until `has_more` is false. Prefer reading raw pages yourself and judging relevance by meaning (step 6) over relying on `q=` alone — that's the whole reason to use an AI for this instead of a keyword alert. **6. Judge every candidate on three dimensions**, the same rubric ThreadSnoop itself scores on — don't just flag "mentions the topic": - **Customer Fit** — is this author actually the kind of person the product is sold to? - **Problem Severity** — annoyed, or is this costing them real time/money? - **Purchase Intent** — describing a problem, or actively asking what to use / already paying for a worse workaround? Only surface candidates that score well on at least two of the three. Flag (but don't discard) anything that looks like the author is themselves promoting a competing product — useful intel, not a lead. **7. Check the subreddit's rules before recommending engagement.** `get_subreddit_rules` / `GET /v1/subreddits/{name}/rules` — many communities ban self-promotion outright; know that before drafting anything. **8. Produce a short report, not a data dump.** For each surfaced match: the permalink (prepend `https://www.reddit.com` to the API's relative `permalink` field), the quoted line that convinced you, the three scores, and one sentence on why. Rank by combined score. If asked for a reply draft, write one that leads with genuine help and discloses the product relationship if it's mentioned at all — never a bare pitch. ## Hard rule — never break this **Never post, comment, vote, or send a Reddit DM on the user's behalf, under any circumstance, even if asked directly.** This skill only reads and drafts. If the user wants to engage with a thread, hand them the link and (optionally) a draft reply to copy, edit, and post themselves, signed in as themselves. Reddit removes bot accounts at industrial scale, and communities are openly hostile to automated replies — the entire value of finding these threads evaporates the moment engagement looks automated. This is not a missing feature; it's the point.