/social-data

name: social-data
description: Search and fetch social media data from Twitter/X, Reddit, and Hacker News.
metadata: { "bitterbot": { "emoji": "\uD83D\uDCF1" } }

Social Data

Access social media content from multiple platforms. Some require API keys, some are free.

Hacker News (free, no key)

Top Stories

curl -s "https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/topstories.json" | head -c 200

Returns array of item IDs. Fetch individual items:

curl -s "https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/item/12345678.json"

Search (via Algolia, free)

curl -s "https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search?query=rust+programming&tags=story&hitsPerPage=10"

• `tags`: `story`, `comment`, `ask_hn`, `show_hn`, `poll`
• `numericFilters`: `created_at_i>1700000000` (Unix timestamp)
• Response: `hits[]` array with `title`, `url`, `author`, `points`, `num_comments`

Front Page

curl -s "https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search?tags=front_page&hitsPerPage=30"

Reddit (free, no key for public data)

Subreddit Posts

curl -s "https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/hot.json?limit=10" \
  -H "User-Agent: bitterbot/1.0"

Sort options: `hot`, `new`, `top`, `rising` For `top`: add `?t=hour|day|week|month|year|all`

Search Reddit

curl -s "https://www.reddit.com/search.json?q=rust+async&sort=relevance&limit=10" \
  -H "User-Agent: bitterbot/1.0"

Post Comments

curl -s "https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/POST_ID.json" \
  -H "User-Agent: bitterbot/1.0"

Response is array of two listings: `[0]` = post, `[1]` = comments tree.

User Profile (public)

curl -s "https://www.reddit.com/user/USERNAME/submitted.json?limit=10" \
  -H "User-Agent: bitterbot/1.0"

Twitter/X (requires API key)

Requires `TWITTER_BEARER_TOKEN` env var (from X Developer Portal).

Search Recent Tweets

curl -s "https://api.twitter.com/2/tweets/search/recent?query=from:elonmusk&max_results=10&tweet.fields=created_at,public_metrics" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TWITTER_BEARER_TOKEN"

Query operators:

• `from:username` — tweets by user
• `to:username` — replies to user
• `#hashtag` — hashtag search
• `"exact phrase"` — exact match
• `-is:retweet` — exclude retweets
• `lang:en` — language filter
• `has:media` — tweets with media

User Lookup

curl -s "https://api.twitter.com/2/users/by/username/elonmusk?user.fields=public_metrics,description,created_at" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TWITTER_BEARER_TOKEN"

User Timeline

curl -s "https://api.twitter.com/2/users/USER_ID/tweets?max_results=10&tweet.fields=created_at,public_metrics" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TWITTER_BEARER_TOKEN"

Tips

• Always include `User-Agent` header for Reddit (they block default agents).
• Reddit JSON endpoints append `.json` to any Reddit URL.
• HN Algolia API is the most reliable for search; Firebase API for real-time data.
• Twitter free tier allows 500K tweets/month read access.
• For rate-limited APIs, cache results and avoid repeated identical queries.
• Use `web_fetch` for HTML pages, `exec` + `curl` for JSON APIs.