One founder let his agent blast the same launch post into ten subreddits inside an hour. Every single one got pulled by moderators before lunch.
u/investigatormaker builds a Reddit tool for Claude Code and Codex agents, and watched that failure happen often enough to write the fix. The fix isn’t more code. It’s a plain skill file the agent reads before it ever touches the “post” button. This Redditor shared the whole thing in r/PromptEngineering.
That’s the detail worth sitting with. Most people building agent tooling reach for another script or another API call. The most useful part of this build turned out to be ten lines of plain instructions.
Why It Matters 🤔
Here’s the part that stings: telling an agent to “read the rules first” doesn’t actually work. It skims the sidebar, writes a polite summary, and moves on. It still misses the flair requirement buried in a stickied post, or the promo thread that would have kept the link alive.
The creator’s fix is naming exactly what to look for instead of just saying “look.” Self-promotion caps. Promo threads. Required flair. Link bans. Account age minimums. Spell those out and the agent actually checks for them.
That specificity matters because an agent’s default move is pure efficiency. One post, twenty subreddits, one hour, job done. A skill file sitting in the agent’s instructions catches that pattern automatically, every time someone asks it to share, launch, or promote something. Nobody has to remember to paste the rule in by hand.
The Steps, As Posted 📋
The original poster condensed the whole approach into ten numbered steps across three phases. Here’s the block exactly as it appeared:
Before writing
- Pick communities where the product answers a question people there already ask. Fit before size.
- Read each community’s rules the day you post (/r/<name>/about/rules plus the sidebar).
- Look specifically for: self-promotion limits (e.g. a 10% rule), a weekly promo thread, required flair, link bans, account age or karma minimums. If self-promotion isn’t allowed, use the promo thread or don’t post the link.
Writing
- New title and body for each community. Never paste the same post twice.
- Say it’s yours in the first lines.
- Lead with something useful on its own: what you learned, real numbers, a how-to. The link is the footnote.
Posting and after
- Space posts out. Never a burst of communities in one hour.
- Stay for the comments in the first few hours.
- Check at 1, 6 and 24 hours whether each post is still up.
- If a community removes you twice, stop posting there. Don’t repost removed content.
Steps 1 through 3 are reconnaissance. Pick a community where you actually fit, read its rules fresh, and hunt for the specifics a quick skim would skip.
Steps 4 through 6 force original writing for every single community. That kills the most common way these posts get flagged as spam: one post, copy pasted, dropped everywhere.
Steps 7 through 10 cover what happens after you hit send. Space it out, stay for comments, and check back at set intervals. Step 9 is a built in verification loop. Most people write the posting instructions and skip the “did it actually survive” check entirely.
Tips & Tricks 💡
A couple of comments on the thread added ideas worth folding into step 3 of your own copy:
- Check what the top posts in a community actually look like before you post. Written rules won’t tell you whether links belong in the body or the first comment. That unwritten norm can get a post removed just as fast as an actual rule break.
- Skip communities that are technically huge but quietly dead. A 200,000 member subreddit with no activity this week wastes the post. It can still draw a mod’s attention for nothing in return.
The author’s own test run backs up why step 9 exists. Running this checklist meant skipping more communities than actually posting in, since most business and marketing subs restrict self-promotion outright. One community still pulled a post within seconds, no reason given. Rules don’t guarantee anything. They just improve the odds.
Worth noting if you want these checks as tools instead of steps to remember: this creator packaged four free MCP tools alongside the skill. They cover rule lookups, community discovery, account checks, and post status. Handy if your agent would rather query a tool than parse a rules page from scratch.
Call To Action 🚀
If any agent posts publicly on your behalf right now, steal this checklist wholesale. Drop it into a skills folder or the top of a system prompt, and watch how many subreddits it quietly decides to skip.
The original thread has the full skill plus more reader suggestions for step 3. Worth a read before an agent posts anything else.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Do I really need to check the top posts if I’ve already read the rules?
Yes, rules won’t tell you the unwritten norms. Check the front page to see how long posts actually are, where people place links (body vs. comments), and what tone resonates. Those details matter as much as following the official rules.
Q: What if my post follows all the rules but gets zero engagement?
That means you misread the room despite doing the technical work. It’s harder to automate, but watch engagement in the first few hours. If a post is silent by hour 6, you’ve learned something about fit for that community. Adjust timing and messaging next time, follow-up is the real teacher here.
Q: Should I post in a big subreddit even if activity has been slow lately?
Skip it. A 200k-member sub with minimal recent posts or engagement is a wasted effort, and can still flag mods. Focus on communities where there’s been real discussion in the last week. Active communities are where the conversation already exists.
[Technique] The skill I give an agent before it touches Reddit: read the rules first, one post per community, check what stayed up
by u/investigatormaker in PromptEngineering