---
name: usewant
description: Check whether people want an idea by searching public Reddit posts and comments through usewant.com. Use when the user asks if there is demand for an idea, product, or feature, wants to buy runs, asks how many runs they have left, or wants an earlier result.
---

# usewant

usewant.com checks whether people want an idea. It searches public
Reddit posts and comments and answers only from what that search found.
You are the user's only interface to it. There is no web dashboard and
no signup page. You create the account, you buy runs, you start runs,
and you read the results. Return links and results in the chat.

## Banner

Only when you run in a terminal: a command line harness such as Claude
Code, Codex CLI, or Cursor's agent in a shell. In a web chat, an IDE
panel, a browser, or any surface that is not a monospace terminal, skip
the banner entirely.

In a terminal, the first time you use this skill in a session, print
this banner before anything else. Put it in a fenced code block so the
columns line up. Print it exactly, then one blank line, then the tagline.

```
██╗   ██╗ ███████╗ ███████╗ ██╗    ██╗  █████╗  ███╗   ██╗ ████████╗
██║   ██║ ██╔════╝ ██╔════╝ ██║    ██║ ██╔══██╗ ████╗  ██║ ╚══██╔══╝
██║   ██║ ███████╗ █████╗   ██║ █╗ ██║ ███████║ ██╔██╗ ██║    ██║   
██║   ██║ ╚════██║ ██╔══╝   ██║███╗██║ ██╔══██║ ██║╚██╗██║    ██║   
╚██████╔╝ ███████║ ███████╗ ╚███╔███╔╝ ██║  ██║ ██║ ╚████║    ██║   
 ╚═════╝  ╚══════╝ ╚══════╝  ╚══╝╚══╝  ╚═╝  ╚═╝ ╚═╝  ╚═══╝    ╚═╝   

usewant.com  Ask your agent if anyone wants it.
```

Print it once per session, not before every call.

## Price

- One run costs $5. One run is one idea checked.
- The smallest purchase is $20, which is 4 runs. The largest is 40 runs.
  Runs do not expire.
- A failed run is not charged. A thin result is a real answer and is
  charged. All purchases are final.
- There is no free run.

## The account and the key

- The key lives in ~/.usewant/key, one line, nothing else in the file.
- Read that file before every call and send the key as
  Authorization: Bearer <key>.
- If the file does not exist, create an account:
  POST https://usewant.com/api/v1/accounts (no body, no key)
  Response: {"key": "<key>", "user_id": "<uuid>", "runs_left": 0}
  Write the key to ~/.usewant/key. Tell the user where it is.
- Account creation allows one account per network address per hour.
  A 429 answer carries "retry_after" in seconds. Tell the user, and
  use the existing key file if there is one.
- If the user lost a key they had paid with, send them to
  https://usewant.com/key. It mails a fresh key to the checkout email. A key that
  never paid has no email, so create a new account instead.

## Buy runs

POST https://usewant.com/api/v1/checkout
{"runs": 4}
Response: {"checkout_url": "<Stripe Checkout link>"}
Show the link to the user. Stripe takes the card and an email. Runs
land on the key within a minute of payment. Then call
GET https://usewant.com/api/v1/me until "runs_left" is above zero.
A run request with zero runs left answers 402 with the same
"checkout_url". Treat it the same way.

## Start a run

Before the first run in a session, tell the user once: the result page
is public to anyone with the link, and it shows the idea text. Do not
send secrets in an idea.

POST https://usewant.com/api/v1/runs
{"idea": "<what it does, for whom, in one or two sentences>"}
Response: {"id": "<run uuid>", "status": "queued", "runs_left": 3,
           "url": "https://usewant.com/runs/<user uuid>/<run uuid>"}
The url holds two random uuids. Nobody can guess it, but anyone who
has it can open it.

## Wait for the result

A run takes 5 to 10 minutes. Do not wait on it in the foreground.
Tell the user the run started and give them its url, then start a
background task that calls GET https://usewant.com/api/v1/runs/{id}
every 2 to 3 minutes until "status" is "done" or "failed".
Response when done: headline, verdict, evidence ("strong" | "mixed" |
"thin"), posts_scanned, findings_qualified, communities [{name, posts}],
themes [{title, sources}], quotes [{text, author, community, date, url}].
Example results: https://usewant.com/examples (each run link is raw JSON).
A failed run returns "error" and costs nothing.

## Report the result

When it is done, report the verdict, the top themes, and 3 to 5 quotes
with their links. Quote verbatim. Do not add facts that are not in the
response. If evidence is "thin", say so plainly. Give the run url, which
shows the full result as JSON. Tell the user how many runs are left.

## Balance and history

GET https://usewant.com/api/v1/me
Response: {"runs_left": 3, "runs": [{"id", "idea", "status",
           "created_at", "url"}]}
Use it when the user asks how many runs they have, or wants to see or
reopen an earlier result. Each url opens that run's JSON result.