Maximum number of pages to scrape. Each page holds 10 results. If omitted, results continue until `limit` is reached (or the 45s time budget ends, returning partial results with `incompleteReason: "scrape_timeout"`), billed as `ceil(items returned / 10)`. If passed, results are capped at that many pages and billed per page actually returned (see `pagesScraped` in the response).

Response Fields

search-communities

Find subreddits by keyword

blocked boolean

Whether Reddit returned a block or verification page.

blockReason string | null

Machine-readable block reason when blocked is true; otherwise omitted.

blockedBodyText string | null

Diagnostic block-page text when blocked is true; otherwise omitted.

pageTitle string

Title of the scraped Reddit page.

requestedUrl string

Reddit URL requested by the scraper.

fetchUrl string

Normalized Reddit URL fetched by the scraper.

finalUrl string

Final URL after redirects.

responseStatus number | null

HTTP status returned by Reddit, or null when unavailable.

listingType string

Always search-communities for a successful response.

query string

Community search query.

items[].subreddit string | null

Subreddit name without the r/ prefix.

items[].subredditPrefixed string | null

Subreddit name with the r/ prefix.

items[].title string | null

Community display title.

items[].descriptionText string

Plain-text community description.

items[].descriptionHtml string | null

HTML community description when available.

items[].url string | null

Absolute subreddit URL.

items[].metaText string | null

Metadata text displayed by Reddit.

items[].nsfw boolean

Whether the community marks itself as 18+ (NSFW).

listingTitle string | null

Display title of the listing, or null when unavailable.

itemCount number

Number of entries returned in items.

nextPageUrl string | null

Next-page URL when available, otherwise null.

prevPageUrl string | null

Previous-page URL when available, otherwise null.

pagesRequested number

Number of pages requested.

pagesScraped number

Number of pages successfully scraped. This is what the request is billed at: 1 credit per page actually scraped, never per page requested.

scrapedAt string

ISO 8601 timestamp for the scrape.

transport string

Reddit page transport used for extraction.

Request

curl -X POST "https://api.fetchlayer.dev/reddit/search-communities" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer ss-your-key" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"query":"programming","limit":5}'

import { FetchLayer } from '@fetchlayer/reddit';

const client = new FetchLayer({ apiKey: 'ss-your-key' });

const result = await client.searchCommunities({
  "query": "programming",
  "limit": 5
});

Response

{
  "blocked": false,
  "listingType": "search-communities",
  "query": "programming",
  "items": [
    {
      "subreddit": "programming",
      "subredditPrefixed": "r/programming",
      "title": "Programming",
      "descriptionText": "Computer Programming",
      "url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/",
      "metaText": "Programming community",
      "nsfw": false
    }
  ],
  "itemCount": 1,
  "pagesRequested": 1,
  "pagesScraped": 1,
  "transport": "old-reddit-html"
}

{
  "error": "Invalid API key"
}