Reddit Python API Docs | dltHub

Reddit is a social news aggregation and discussion platform exposing a REST API for listing subreddits, posts, comments, users and account actions. The REST API base URL is https://oauth.reddit.com (authenticated requests); https://www.reddit.com (public endpoints) and All requests require OAuth2 (Bearer token) for authenticated endpoints; public listings can be fetched unauthenticated but OAuth increases rate limits..

dlt is an open-source Python library that handles authentication, pagination, and schema evolution automatically. dlthub provides AI context files that enable code assistants to generate production-ready pipelines. Install with uv pip install "dlt[workspace]" and start loading Reddit data in under 10 minutes.

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What data can I load from Reddit?

Here are some of the endpoints you can load from Reddit:

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How do I authenticate with the Reddit API?

OAuth2 access tokens are obtained from https://www.reddit.com/api/v1/access_token using HTTP Basic auth with client_id:client_secret; send header Authorization: Bearer <access_token> and a descriptive User-Agent header on all requests.

1. Get your credentials

1. Sign in to Reddit and visit https://www.reddit.com/prefs/apps. 2) Click "Create App" or "Create Another App". 3) Choose the app type (script for personal scripts, web app for web flows) and set a redirect URI if needed. 4) After creation note the client ID (displayed under the app name) and client secret. 5) For script apps, request a token via POST https://www.reddit.com/api/v1/access_token using HTTP Basic auth with client_id:client_secret and grant_type=password (or use the authorization_code flow for web apps) to obtain an access token and refresh token.

2. Add them to .dlt/secrets.toml

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[sources.reddit_source]
client_id = "your_client_id"
client_secret = "your_client_secret"
refresh_token = "your_refresh_token"
access_token = "your_access_token"

dlt reads this automatically at runtime — never hardcode tokens in your pipeline script. For production environments, see setting up credentials with dlt for environment variable and vault-based options.

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How do I set up and run the pipeline?

Set up a virtual environment and install dlt:

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uv venv && source .venv/bin/activate
uv pip install "dlt[workspace]"

1. Install the dlt AI Workbench:

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dlt ai init --agent <your-agent> # <agent>: claude | cursor | codex

This installs project rules, a secrets management skill, appropriate ignore files, and configures the dlt MCP server for your agent. Learn more →

2. Install the rest-api-pipeline toolkit:

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dlt ai toolkit rest-api-pipeline install

This loads the skills and context about dlt the agent uses to build the pipeline iteratively, efficiently, and safely. The agent uses MCP tools to inspect credentials — it never needs to read your secrets.toml directly. Learn more →

3. Start LLM-assisted coding:

Use /find-source to load data from the Reddit API into DuckDB.

The rest-api-pipeline toolkit takes over from here — it reads relevant API documentation, presents you with options for which endpoints to load, and follows a structured workflow to scaffold, debug, and validate the pipeline step by step.

4. Run the pipeline:

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python reddit_pipeline.py

If everything is configured correctly, you'll see output like this:

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Pipeline reddit_pipeline load step completed in 0.26 seconds
1 load package(s) were loaded to destination duckdb and into dataset reddit_data
The duckdb destination used duckdb:/reddit.duckdb location to store data
Load package 1749667187.541553 is LOADED and contains no failed jobs

Inspect your pipeline and data:

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dlt pipeline reddit_pipeline show

This opens the Pipeline Dashboard where you can verify pipeline state, load metrics, schema (tables, columns, types), and query the loaded data directly.

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Python pipeline example

This example loads subreddits_hot and user_overview from the Reddit API into DuckDB. It mirrors the endpoint and data selector configuration from the table above:

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import dlt
from dlt.sources.rest_api import RESTAPIConfig, rest_api_resources

@dlt.source
def reddit_source(access_token=dlt.secrets.value):
    config: RESTAPIConfig = {
        "client": {
            "base_url": "https://oauth.reddit.com (authenticated requests); https://www.reddit.com (public endpoints)",
            "auth": {
                "type": "bearer",
                "token": access_token,
            },
        },
        "resources": [
            {"name": "subreddits_hot", "endpoint": {"path": "r/{subreddit}/hot", "data_selector": "data.children"}},
            {"name": "user_overview", "endpoint": {"path": "user/{username}/overview", "data_selector": "data.children"}}
        ],
    }
    yield from rest_api_resources(config)


def get_data() -> None:
    pipeline = dlt.pipeline(
        pipeline_name="reddit_pipeline",
        destination="duckdb",
        dataset_name="reddit_data",
    )
    load_info = pipeline.run(reddit_source())
    print(load_info)

To add more endpoints, append entries from the resource table to the "resources" list using the same name, path, and data_selector pattern.

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How do I query the loaded data?

Once the pipeline runs, dlt creates one table per resource. You can query with Python or SQL.

Python (pandas DataFrame):

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import dlt

data = dlt.pipeline("reddit_pipeline").dataset()
sessions_df = data.subreddit_comments.df()
print(sessions_df.head())

SQL (DuckDB example):

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SELECT * FROM reddit_data.subreddit_comments LIMIT 10;

In a marimo or Jupyter notebook:

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import dlt

data = dlt.pipeline("reddit_pipeline").dataset()
data.subreddit_comments.df().head()

See how to explore your data in marimo Notebooks and how to query your data in Python with dataset.

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What destinations can I load Reddit data to?

dlt supports loading into any of these destinations — only the destination parameter changes:

Change the destination in dlt.pipeline(destination="snowflake") and add credentials in .dlt/secrets.toml. See the full destinations list.

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Troubleshooting

Authentication failures

If you receive 401 Unauthorized, verify you are sending Authorization: Bearer <access_token> and that the token has not expired. Refresh the token using the /api/v1/access_token endpoint with your client credentials.

Rate limiting

Reddit returns rate‑limit headers (X‑Ratelimit‑Used, X‑Ratelimit‑Remaining, X‑Ratelimit‑Reset). Authenticated apps have higher limits. On a 429 Too Many Requests response, back off for the number of seconds indicated by X‑Ratelimit‑Reset.

Pagination and listings

Listing endpoints return a wrapper object where the actual records are under data.children. Use the after and before parameters with the fullname of the last/first item to paginate. The /r/{subreddit}/comments/{article} endpoint returns a top‑level JSON array (post object followed by a comments listing) rather than a single listing; add raw_json=1 to avoid HTML‑escaped characters.

Common error codes

• 401 Unauthorized – invalid or expired token.
• 403 Forbidden – insufficient scopes.
• 404 Not Found – invalid endpoint or resource.
• 429 Too Many Requests – rate limit exceeded.
• 5xx Server errors – temporary backend issues.

Ensure that the API key is valid to avoid 401 Unauthorized errors. Also, verify endpoint paths and parameters to avoid 404 Not Found errors.

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Next steps

Continue your data engineering journey with the other toolkits of the dltHub AI Workbench:

• data-exploration — Build custom notebooks, charts, and dashboards for deeper analysis with marimo notebooks.
• dlthub-runtime — Deploy, schedule, and monitor your pipeline in production.

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dlt ai toolkit data-exploration install
dlt ai toolkit dlthub-runtime install

• How to deploy a pipeline
• How to explore your data in marimo Notebooks
• How to query your data in Python with dataset
• Join the dlt community on Slack