Botstradamus

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  The grand Reveal

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  Select a question or enter your own

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  Consulting the universe..

Inspiration

The idea for Botstradamus sparked from the quirky intersection of nostalgia and technology. We wanted to blend the fun, mystique, and humor of old-school fortune telling with the power of modern data. The goal? Create a Reddit bot that could read the “digital tea leaves” of a user’s activity and make eerily specific (or delightfully ridiculous) predictions about their Reddit future. With Devvit making Reddit bots more powerful and accessible than ever, it was the perfect playground for our experiment in algorithmic clairvoyance.

What it does

Botstradamus is a Reddit bot that analyzes your past posts, comments, and upvoted content to craft customized fortune-telling predictions. Once summoned (by entering the Q&A, mention or a trigger word), it dives into your Reddit history, identifies patterns, favorite subreddits, and typical posting times, then returns a whimsical fortune, such as:

“I see you making a wildly popular meme in r/funny next week…but beware of the downvote storm from r/unpopularopinion!”

The bot’s fortunes are a playful mix of real activity analysis and classic fortune teller flair—sometimes insightful, sometimes hilarious, always entertaining.

How we built it

We built Botstradamus using Devvit, Reddit’s modern platform for app and bot creation. The bot utilizes Reddit’s API to fetch a user’s public activity data (with privacy considerations in place). Using TypeScript, we process the data, looking for trends like active subreddits, common posting hours, and post sentiment. A custom “fortune engine” combines these insights with a library of fortune-teller tropes and randomized elements to keep each prediction unique and engaging.

The backend leverages Node.js and integrates with OpenAI’s GPT model for creative language generation, ensuring the fortunes are not only based on real data but also have that classic, slightly mystical vibe.

Challenges we ran into

• Privacy Concerns: Ensuring we only access public data and respect user privacy was a top priority. We had to design the bot to only work with information a user has made public.
• Rate Limits: Reddit API rate limits made us carefully balance data fetching and user experience. We implemented caching and smart querying to avoid unnecessary calls.
• Balancing Humor and Insight: Striking the right tone between funny, spooky, and insightful required lots of iteration. We didn’t want to be too generic—or too creepy!
• Devvit Learning Curve: As early adopters, we had to navigate Devvit’s evolving documentation and platform quirks.

Accomplishments that we’re proud of

• Created a bot that genuinely surprised and delighted test users with its fortunes.
• Built a robust data analysis pipeline that generates relevant, not just random, predictions.
• Stayed true to privacy-first principles, earning trust from users and moderators alike.

What we learned

• Users love interactive, personalized experiences—especially when humor is involved.
• The Devvit platform opens up a lot of creative potential but rewards careful planning and modular design.
• Building a good Reddit bot is as much about community engagement and moderation as it is about technical chops.
• Small touches (like tarot-card emoji, fortune-cookie metaphors, etc.) go a long way in making bots more engaging.

What’s next for Botstradamus

We’re excited to roll out new features based on user feedback! Up next:

• Improved LLM calls and advanced user context data for improved accuracy and surprise factor
• Adding combined user fortune teller capabilities, for blended readings
• Subreddit-wide fortune telling, with community features (more to come)
• Personalized fortune cards (with visuals generated from user activity)
• Fortune threads—allowing users to share and compare their predictions
• Enhance the “Ask the Oracle” mode for direct Q&A with Botstradamus, e.g. with astrology
• Expanding the fortune engine with more data sources (like awards, flairs, or trending memes)
• Collaborating with (or dynamically adapting to) more subreddits to bring custom, themed fortune-telling experiences to their communities

The future is (algorithmically) bright for Botstradamus!

Built With

• bolt
• devvit
• javascript
• node.js
• reddit
• vite
• webview