Reddit Search with No Code: See What Reddit Says About Any Topic

This Reddit search is for marketers and founders who want to know what people on Reddit think about a topic: the advice they give, the questions they keep asking and what annoys them. Paste one saved prompt into Claude or Cursor with the Desearch MCP server connected, and you get Reddit thread links on your topic plus a short summary with numbered links back to the threads. No code and no scrolling for an hour.

The problem

Reddit is full of honest opinions, but finding the right threads takes time. You search, open a dozen tabs, skim long comment chains and try to remember who said what. By the end you have a feeling, not a list you can share with your team. You want the useful threads and the main opinions in one place, with links so anyone can check the source.

What the app does

• Takes a topic or a question in plain words.
• Searches Reddit with the Desearch ai-search tool, with Reddit as the only source.
• Returns Reddit thread links with their titles (10 in the measured run).
• Adds a short summary of what the threads say, with numbered links back to them.
• With the saved prompt, your assistant also lists the 3 most common questions and the 3 most common complaints.

How Reddit search works here

1. Connect once. Add the hosted Desearch MCP server (https://mcp.desearch.ai/mcp) to Claude or Cursor, with your Desearch API key in the Authorization header.
2. Search Reddit. The saved prompt calls the ai-search tool with tools: ["reddit"] and result_type: "LINKS_WITH_FINAL_SUMMARY" for your topic.
3. Read the result. Your assistant turns the threads into a table (title, what the thread is about, the main opinion, the link) and lists the common questions and complaints. It does not name individual posters.

The code

No code is needed for the saved prompt. For people who want a script, these are the core lines from reddit_search.py in the example (lines 15 to 19 and 50 to 62). The script reads your key from the DESEARCH_API_KEY environment variable (lines 71 to 73).

def build_args(topic, result_type="LINKS_WITH_FINAL_SUMMARY"):
    """Arguments for the ai-search tool with Reddit as the only source."""
    if not topic or not topic.strip():
        raise ValueError("topic is empty")
    return {"prompt": topic.strip(), "tools": ["reddit"], "result_type": result_type}


async def search(topic, key, result_type="LINKS_WITH_FINAL_SUMMARY"):
    from mcp import ClientSession
    from mcp.client.streamable_http import streamable_http_client
    from mcp.shared._httpx_utils import create_mcp_http_client

    async with create_mcp_http_client(headers={"Authorization": key}) as hc, \
            streamable_http_client(MCP_URL, http_client=hc) as streams:
        async with ClientSession(streams[0], streams[1]) as s:
            await s.initialize()
            res = await s.call_tool("ai-search", build_args(topic, result_type),
                                    read_timeout_seconds=180)
            content = [c.model_dump() for c in res.content]
            return parse_result(content)

    key = os.environ.get("DESEARCH_API_KEY")
    if not key:
        sys.exit("Set DESEARCH_API_KEY (get one at console.desearch.ai)")

The folder has saved-prompt.md (the no-code version), reddit_search.py (the script; it prints the thread links, the summary and the cost), README.md with a sample output, and offline tests in tests/.

Endpoints

• MCP tool ai-search (tools: reddit)

Example output

Saved sample from a search on 2026-10-16 for "What do people recommend for keeping houseplants alive in winter?". This page shows that stored request and response. It does not run a live demo.

Sample request

The saved prompt calls ai-search with Reddit as the only source:

{
  "prompt": "What do people recommend for keeping houseplants alive in winter?",
  "tools": ["reddit"],
  "result_type": "LINKS_WITH_FINAL_SUMMARY"
}

Sample response

Two of the thread titles, as Desearch returned them:

• "r/houseplants on Reddit: How does anyone keep their plants alive in the winter?!?"
• "r/IndoorPlants on Reddit: How to keep plants alive in winter"

The advice in the summary: keep plants away from cold windows and drafts, add a grow light for the darker months, keep a steady watering routine so you neither overwater nor underwater, and raise the humidity for tropical plants.

Run it yourself

No code: connect the Desearch MCP server in Claude or Cursor, paste saved-prompt.md, and put your topic in it.

Script:

git clone https://github.com/Desearch-ai/desearch-py-examples && cd desearch-py-examples/reddit-search-mcp
pip install -r requirements.txt
export DESEARCH_API_KEY=...   # from console.desearch.ai
python reddit_search.py "What do people recommend for keeping houseplants alive in winter?"

Useful flags: --links-only (thread links without the summary) and --raw out.json (save the full response to a file).

What it costs

One Reddit search with a summary cost $0.004 for 10 threads (cost field in the response, measured 2026-10-16). See pricing.

Ideas to extend it

• Run the same topic once a month and compare the common questions and complaints.
• Search for your product category and turn the top complaints into an FAQ or a landing page section.
• Pair it with an X search on the same topic to see how the two communities talk about it.