Opinion

Secrets of the LessWrong RSS Feed

​Published on February 23, 2026 8:12 PM GMTLessWrong’s RSS feed includes all recently published articles by default, but it has a bunch of undocumented features available with query params:You can request only posts above a certain karma (karmaThreshold), only with certain authors (userId), frontpage only (view=frontpage), curated-only (view=curated), and several other views.Just the frontpage: https://www.lesswrong.com/feed.xml?view=frontpageMy posts: https://www.lesswrong.com/feed.xml?userId=piR3ZKGHEp6vqTo87[1]Comments have RSS feeds (type=comment, view=postCommentsNew, postId, parentCommentId if you want only replies to a specific comment)Comments on this post: https://www.lesswrong.com/feed.xml?type=comments&view=postCommentsNew&postId=dzF8vSdDtmWjCBBDr[2]Quick takes / shortform have an RSS feed (view=shortform, view=topShortForm or view=shortformFrontpage)Quick takes front page: https://www.lesswrong.com/feed.xml?type=comments&view=shortformFrontpageMy shortform: https://www.lesswrong.com/feed.xml?type=comments&view=shortform&userId=6jLdWqegNefgaabhrSomewhat surprisingly, the number of articles returned is not configurable and is hard-coded at 10 for posts and 50 for comments.There’s also a full GraphQL API if you have needs beyond this, but the RSS feed is nice if you want it to work in a normal feed reader.LessWrong RSS Feed BuilderSince there’s a lot of options, I also built a tool to generate LessWrong RSS feed URLs. Full DocumentationNote: This was generated by Claude after reading the source code for feed.xml and related utility code.Query ParametersParameterTypeDescriptiontypestringSet to comments for comment feeds, otherwise returns postsviewstringFeed type/view (see views below). Defaults to rsskarmaThresholdnumberMinimum karma for posts to appear (see threshold logic below)filterSettingsJSONAdvanced filtering (JSON-encoded object)postIdstringFilter comments to a specific posttagIdstringFor tagRelevance post view or tag comment viewsuserIdstringFilter by author user IDparentCommentIdstringFor commentReplies view – replies to a specific commentparentAnswerIdstringFor repliesToAnswer view – replies to a specific answertopLevelCommentIdstringFor repliesToCommentThread view – full thread under a commentforumEventIdstringFor forumEventComments viewsortBystringSort mode for views that support it (see per-view notes)Post Feed ViewsViewDescriptionSort Orderrss (default)All newest postspostedAt descendingfrontpageRssFrontpage posts onlyfrontpageDate descendingcuratedRssCurated posts onlycuratedDate descendingcommunityRssNon-frontpage posts with karma > 2postedAt descendingmetaRssMeta posts onlypostedAt descendingtagRelevancePosts by tag (requires tagId param)Tag relevance scoreNote: View names can use either camelCase (frontpageRss) or kebab-case (frontpage-rss).Comment Feed ViewsAll comment views require type=comments. The limit is hardcoded to 50 results.GeneralViewDescriptionSortrss (default)Recent comments with positive score (alias for recentComments)postedAt descrecentCommentsRecent comments with positive scorepostedAt descallRecentCommentsAll recent comments including neutral/negative scorepostedAt desccommentRepliesReplies to a specific comment (requires parentCommentId)postedAt descmoderatorCommentsComments posted with a moderator hatpostedAt descPer-Post (require postId)These views exclude answers and answer-replies (filter answer: false, parentAnswerId: null).ViewDescriptionSortpostCommentsNewComments on a post, newest firstpostedAt descpostCommentsOldComments on a post, oldest firstpostedAt ascpostCommentsTopComments on a post, highest karma firstbaseScore descpostCommentsBestComments on a post, best firstbaseScore descpostCommentsMagicComments on a post, magic/Wilson sortscore descpostCommentsRecentRepliesComments on a post, by recent subthread activitylastSubthreadActivity descpostsItemCommentsRecent non-deleted comments on a postpostedAt descquestionAnswersAnswers to a question post (supports sortBy)baseScore descanswersAndRepliesAnswers and their replies (supports sortBy)baseScore descdebateResponsesDebate responses on a postpostedAt ascrecentDebateResponsesRecent debate responses on a postpostedAt descPer-UserViewDescriptionSortprofileCommentsComments by a user (supports sortBy)postedAt descprofileRecentComments(Deprecated) Recent comments by a userpostedAt descShortform / Quick TakesViewDescriptionSortshortformTop-level shortform commentslastSubthreadActivity desctopShortformTop shortform by score (supports before/after)baseScore descshortformFrontpageFrontpage shortform (recent, filtered by quality)score descPer-Tag (require tagId)ViewDescriptionSorttagDiscussionCommentsDiscussion comments on a tagdefaulttagSubforumCommentsSubforum comments for a tag (supports sortBy)lastSubthreadActivity descsortBy ValuesViews that support the sortBy parameter accept these values:ValueSort OrdertopbaseScore descendingnew / newestpostedAt descendingold / oldestpostedAt ascendingmagicscore descendingrecentCommentslastSubthreadActivity descendingKarma Threshold LogicThe karmaThreshold parameter determines when posts appear in the feed based on when they reached certain karma levels. Posts have timestamps for when they exceeded various karma thresholds.Input values are rounded to the nearest supported threshold:Input RangeActual ThresholdDate Field Used< 16 (or not set)2scoreExceeded2Date16-3630scoreExceeded30Date37-5945scoreExceeded45Date60-9975scoreExceeded75Date100-161125scoreExceeded125Date>= 162200scoreExceeded200DateThe feed item’s date is the later of:The karma threshold date (when post reached the threshold)The view-specific date (e.g., frontpageDate for frontpage feed)This allows higher-threshold feeds to show older posts that recently became popular. ^I don’t know where to get userIds from the UI, so I used the GraphQL API:$ curl -s -X POST https://www.lesswrong.com/graphql
-H ‘Content-Type: application/json’
-d ‘{“query”: “query { user(input: { selector: { slug: “brendan-long” } }) { result { _id } } }”}’
{“data”:{“user”:{“result”:{“_id”:”piR3ZKGHEp6vqTo87″}}}}^You can find postIds in the post URL, i.e. the postId for https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ioZxrP7BhS5ArK59w/did-claude-3-opus-align-itself-via-gradient-hacking is ioZxrP7BhS5ArK59w.Discuss ​Read More

​Published on February 23, 2026 8:12 PM GMTLessWrong’s RSS feed includes all recently published articles by default, but it has a bunch of undocumented features available with query params:You can request only posts above a certain karma (karmaThreshold), only with certain authors (userId), frontpage only (view=frontpage), curated-only (view=curated), and several other views.Just the frontpage: https://www.lesswrong.com/feed.xml?view=frontpageMy posts: https://www.lesswrong.com/feed.xml?userId=piR3ZKGHEp6vqTo87[1]Comments have RSS feeds (type=comment, view=postCommentsNew, postId, parentCommentId if you want only replies to a specific comment)Comments on this post: https://www.lesswrong.com/feed.xml?type=comments&view=postCommentsNew&postId=dzF8vSdDtmWjCBBDr[2]Quick takes / shortform have an RSS feed (view=shortform, view=topShortForm or view=shortformFrontpage)Quick takes front page: https://www.lesswrong.com/feed.xml?type=comments&view=shortformFrontpageMy shortform: https://www.lesswrong.com/feed.xml?type=comments&view=shortform&userId=6jLdWqegNefgaabhrSomewhat surprisingly, the number of articles returned is not configurable and is hard-coded at 10 for posts and 50 for comments.There’s also a full GraphQL API if you have needs beyond this, but the RSS feed is nice if you want it to work in a normal feed reader.LessWrong RSS Feed BuilderSince there’s a lot of options, I also built a tool to generate LessWrong RSS feed URLs. Full DocumentationNote: This was generated by Claude after reading the source code for feed.xml and related utility code.Query ParametersParameterTypeDescriptiontypestringSet to comments for comment feeds, otherwise returns postsviewstringFeed type/view (see views below). Defaults to rsskarmaThresholdnumberMinimum karma for posts to appear (see threshold logic below)filterSettingsJSONAdvanced filtering (JSON-encoded object)postIdstringFilter comments to a specific posttagIdstringFor tagRelevance post view or tag comment viewsuserIdstringFilter by author user IDparentCommentIdstringFor commentReplies view – replies to a specific commentparentAnswerIdstringFor repliesToAnswer view – replies to a specific answertopLevelCommentIdstringFor repliesToCommentThread view – full thread under a commentforumEventIdstringFor forumEventComments viewsortBystringSort mode for views that support it (see per-view notes)Post Feed ViewsViewDescriptionSort Orderrss (default)All newest postspostedAt descendingfrontpageRssFrontpage posts onlyfrontpageDate descendingcuratedRssCurated posts onlycuratedDate descendingcommunityRssNon-frontpage posts with karma > 2postedAt descendingmetaRssMeta posts onlypostedAt descendingtagRelevancePosts by tag (requires tagId param)Tag relevance scoreNote: View names can use either camelCase (frontpageRss) or kebab-case (frontpage-rss).Comment Feed ViewsAll comment views require type=comments. The limit is hardcoded to 50 results.GeneralViewDescriptionSortrss (default)Recent comments with positive score (alias for recentComments)postedAt descrecentCommentsRecent comments with positive scorepostedAt descallRecentCommentsAll recent comments including neutral/negative scorepostedAt desccommentRepliesReplies to a specific comment (requires parentCommentId)postedAt descmoderatorCommentsComments posted with a moderator hatpostedAt descPer-Post (require postId)These views exclude answers and answer-replies (filter answer: false, parentAnswerId: null).ViewDescriptionSortpostCommentsNewComments on a post, newest firstpostedAt descpostCommentsOldComments on a post, oldest firstpostedAt ascpostCommentsTopComments on a post, highest karma firstbaseScore descpostCommentsBestComments on a post, best firstbaseScore descpostCommentsMagicComments on a post, magic/Wilson sortscore descpostCommentsRecentRepliesComments on a post, by recent subthread activitylastSubthreadActivity descpostsItemCommentsRecent non-deleted comments on a postpostedAt descquestionAnswersAnswers to a question post (supports sortBy)baseScore descanswersAndRepliesAnswers and their replies (supports sortBy)baseScore descdebateResponsesDebate responses on a postpostedAt ascrecentDebateResponsesRecent debate responses on a postpostedAt descPer-UserViewDescriptionSortprofileCommentsComments by a user (supports sortBy)postedAt descprofileRecentComments(Deprecated) Recent comments by a userpostedAt descShortform / Quick TakesViewDescriptionSortshortformTop-level shortform commentslastSubthreadActivity desctopShortformTop shortform by score (supports before/after)baseScore descshortformFrontpageFrontpage shortform (recent, filtered by quality)score descPer-Tag (require tagId)ViewDescriptionSorttagDiscussionCommentsDiscussion comments on a tagdefaulttagSubforumCommentsSubforum comments for a tag (supports sortBy)lastSubthreadActivity descsortBy ValuesViews that support the sortBy parameter accept these values:ValueSort OrdertopbaseScore descendingnew / newestpostedAt descendingold / oldestpostedAt ascendingmagicscore descendingrecentCommentslastSubthreadActivity descendingKarma Threshold LogicThe karmaThreshold parameter determines when posts appear in the feed based on when they reached certain karma levels. Posts have timestamps for when they exceeded various karma thresholds.Input values are rounded to the nearest supported threshold:Input RangeActual ThresholdDate Field Used< 16 (or not set)2scoreExceeded2Date16-3630scoreExceeded30Date37-5945scoreExceeded45Date60-9975scoreExceeded75Date100-161125scoreExceeded125Date>= 162200scoreExceeded200DateThe feed item’s date is the later of:The karma threshold date (when post reached the threshold)The view-specific date (e.g., frontpageDate for frontpage feed)This allows higher-threshold feeds to show older posts that recently became popular. ^I don’t know where to get userIds from the UI, so I used the GraphQL API:$ curl -s -X POST https://www.lesswrong.com/graphql
-H ‘Content-Type: application/json’
-d ‘{“query”: “query { user(input: { selector: { slug: “brendan-long” } }) { result { _id } } }”}’
{“data”:{“user”:{“result”:{“_id”:”piR3ZKGHEp6vqTo87″}}}}^You can find postIds in the post URL, i.e. the postId for https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ioZxrP7BhS5ArK59w/did-claude-3-opus-align-itself-via-gradient-hacking is ioZxrP7BhS5ArK59w.Discuss ​Read More

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