@msgly/reddit

Reddit adapter for Msgly — subreddit publishing, thread replies and inbox polling.

npm install @msgly/core @msgly/reddit

import { createHub } from '@msgly/core';
import { createRedditAdapter } from '@msgly/reddit';

const reddit = createRedditAdapter({
  clientId: process.env.REDDIT_CLIENT_ID!,
  clientSecret: process.env.REDDIT_CLIENT_SECRET!,
  username: process.env.REDDIT_USERNAME!,
  password: process.env.REDDIT_PASSWORD!,
  // Required. Reddit throttles generic agents.
  userAgent: 'node:my-app:1.0.0 (by /u/my_account)',
  defaultSubreddit: 'myproduct',
});

const hub = createHub().register(reddit);
await hub.start();   // begins polling the inbox

Create a script app at reddit.com/prefs/apps. If the account has 2FA, pass the password as password:otp.

⚠️ What this adapter deliberately will not do

There is no bulk-DM helper, and that is on purpose. Unsolicited mass direct messages are spam under Reddit's content policy, and enforcement is account-level and fast — often a shadowban inside a single campaign.

send() therefore requires metadata.thingId: the fullname of the thing you are replying to. Calling it without one fails with an explanation rather than messaging a stranger.

| Use | Supported | | --- | --- | | Publish to a subreddit you own or moderate | ✅ publishPost() | | Reply to comments, mentions and inbound DMs | ✅ send() with thingId | | Mass-DM users who never contacted you | ❌ Not built |

For paid promotion, use Reddit Ads — a separate product with its own API.

Publishing

// Self post
await reddit.publishPost({ title: 'We shipped v2', text: 'Changelog inside.' });

// Link post to another subreddit
await reddit.publishPost({
  subreddit: 'programming',       // an `r/` prefix is stripped for you
  title: 'How we built it',
  url: 'https://acme.com/blog',
});

Reddit returns HTTP 200 with a populated errors array rather than an error status, so the adapter reads that array — a RATELIMIT result surfaces as a thrown error carrying Reddit's own "try again in N minutes" text.

Replying

The inbox poll gives you everything you need to reply:

hub.on('message', async (msg) => {
  await hub.send({
    channel: 'reddit',
    account: msg.account,
    contact: msg.contact,
    content: { type: 'text', text: 'Thanks — fixed in v2.1.' },
    metadata: { thingId: msg.metadata?.thingId },
  });
});

Note contact.channelUserId holds the thing fullname, not the username — that is what /api/comment expects back. The human is in metadata.author.

No webhooks

Reddit does not push events. start() polls the unread inbox (default every 60s) and marks items read so they aren't returned twice. Pass a stateStore to persist the cursor across restarts:

createRedditAdapter({ ...cfg, stateStore: new Redis() });

Media

Reddit's image and video upload uses a separate lease-and-upload flow this adapter does not implement, so capabilities.media is all false and uploadMedia throws with that explanation. Host the file yourself and submit a link post instead.

License

MIT