Agent skill

Dev Pain Finder

by tinyfish-io in tinyfish-io/tinyfish-cookbook

Scrape real developer pain points for any keyword, technology, or problem space from Reddit, Hacker News, dev.to, and GitHub Discussions simultaneously — then group complaints by theme, score them…

MITAuto-check passedData & Analytics

Install Dev Pain Finder

skills CLI
$ npx skills add tinyfish-io/tinyfish-cookbook --skill dev-pain-finder -a claude-code

Project install by default; add -g for ~/.claude/skills/.

GitHub CLI
$ gh skill install tinyfish-io/tinyfish-cookbook dev-pain-finder --agent claude-code

Project scope by default; add --scope user for a personal install. Needs GitHub CLI 2.90.0 or later (public preview).

Manual copy
$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/tinyfish-io/tinyfish-cookbook.git skills-src && mkdir -p .claude/skills && cp -r skills-src/skills/dev-pain-finder .claude/skills/dev-pain-finder && rm -rf skills-src

Use ~/.claude/skills/ instead of .claude/skills for a personal install. The folder must contain SKILL.md.

Claude Code skills documentation · loads skills from .claude/skills/

Facts

Skill name
dev-pain-finder
GitHub stars
2.2k
Token cost
~2.6k tokens
SKILL.md length
424 words
Files
2
Skills in repo
28
Repo updated
First seen
Licence
MIT

At a glance

Scrape real developer pain points for any keyword, technology, or problem space from Reddit, Hacker News, dev.to, and GitHub Discussions simultaneously — then group complaints by theme, score them…

  • Works in 3 steps: Clarify input → Parallel scraping → Theme grouping and scoring
  • Someone wants to find developer pain points
  • SKILL.md covers Pre-flight check, Step 1 — Clarify input, Step 2 — Parallel scraping and Step 3 — Theme grouping and…, plus 3 more sections
  • Calls npm; reaches reddit.com and hn.algolia.com

What it does

Dev Pain Finder is an agent skill from tinyfish-io/tinyfish-cookbook. Scrape real developer pain points for any keyword, technology, or problem space from Reddit, Hacker News, dev.to, and GitHub Discussions simultaneously — then group complaints by theme, score them by frequency and upvote weight, and return a ranked opportunity map showing where developer frustration is high and solutions are thin. Use this skill whenever someone wants to find developer pain points, validate a product idea, research what developers are frustrated with, asks "what do developers complain about with…

Its SKILL.md is about 2.6k tokens, which your agent loads only when the skill is triggered. The skill folder holds 1 other file (for example `README.md`). Compatibility notes: {"tools":["tinyfish"]}

It sits in Data & Analytics, covering Web scraping. It works with GitHub and Reddit. The repository describes itself as: A collection of sample apps and recipes built with the TinyFish web agent. Open-source examples for you to learn & build! The licence is MIT.

When your agent uses it

  • Someone wants to find developer pain points
  • Validate a product idea
  • Research what developers are frustrated with
  • Asks what do developers complain about with X

Example prompts

  • “what do developers complain about with X”
  • “what problems exist in X space”
  • “find pain points for X”
  • “/dev-pain-finder”

Requirements

  • Node.js
  • Compatibility (from SKILL.md): {"tools":["tinyfish"]}

Workflow steps

3 steps, taken from the step headings in SKILL.md.

  1. Clarify input
  2. Parallel scraping
  3. Theme grouping and scoring

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit 292ee62. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

  • Tool permissions

    Pre-approves nothing: there is no allowed-tools line, so your agent's usual permission prompts apply.

    From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

  • Runs code

    Shell commands in SKILL.md call:

    • npm

    From the folder's file list and the shell code blocks in SKILL.md.

  • Network

    Hosts in commands or code, which the agent is likely to contact:

    • reddit.com
    • hn.algolia.com
    • dev.to
    • github.com

    From URLs in SKILL.md, links to its own repository left out.

  • Credentials

    Names no API keys, tokens, secrets or passwords.

    From names ending in _API_KEY, _TOKEN, _SECRET, _KEY or _PASSWORD in SKILL.md.

  • Compatibility

    {"tools":["tinyfish"]}

    From compatibility in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

Context cost

Dev Pain Finder loads about 2.6k tokens when it runs. Until then it costs about 206 tokens; SKILL.md has 424 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it
~206
When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches
~2.6k

Estimates: characters ÷ 4, the usual rule of thumb; real counts depend on the model's tokenizer. Scripts and assets cost tokens only if the agent reads them.

Safety

Auto-check passed

The automated check found no risky patterns in SKILL.md.

Automated static check — not a guarantee. Review scripts before installing. It scans the text of SKILL.md for risky patterns (piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files, hidden Unicode, destructive commands); files beside SKILL.md are not scanned.

SKILL.md

The full file from tinyfish-io/tinyfish-cookbook at commit 292ee62, republished under its MIT licence (© tinyfish-io). 424 words, ~2,622 tokens.

Download SKILL.mdSave it as .claude/skills/dev-pain-finder/SKILL.md (or your agent's skills folder). This skill also uses 1 other file; get the full folder from GitHub.
name
dev-pain-finder
description
Scrape real developer pain points for any keyword, technology, or problem space from Reddit, Hacker News, dev.to, and GitHub Discussions simultaneously — then group complaints by theme, score them by frequency and upvote weight, and return a ranked opportunity map showing where developer frustration is high and solutions are thin. Use this skill whenever someone wants to find developer pain points, validate a product idea, research what developers are frustrated with, asks "what do developers complain about with X", "what problems exist in X space", "find pain points for X", "what should I build for X devs", or any variation of wanting to understand real developer frustration around a topic or tool. Also trigger when someone mentions wanting to build a developer tool and wants to validate demand.
compatibility
{"tools":["tinyfish"]}
metadata.author
tinyfish-community
metadata.version
1.0
metadata.tags
developer-tools pain-points product-research reddit hackernews devto github-discussions

Developer Pain Finder

Given a keyword or problem space, scrape real developer complaints from Reddit, Hacker News, dev.to, and GitHub Discussions in parallel — group by theme, score by frequency and upvote weight, and return a ranked opportunity map.

Pre-flight check

bash
tinyfish --version
tinyfish auth status

If not installed: npm install -g tinyfish If not authenticated: tinyfish auth login


Step 1 — Clarify input

You need:

  • Keyword or problem space — e.g. "authentication", "deployment pipelines", "ORM", "Kubernetes", "state management"

If the user hasn't provided one, ask before proceeding. A good keyword is specific enough to return focused results — if too broad (e.g. "JavaScript"), ask them to narrow it down.


Step 2 — Parallel scraping

Fire all 5 agents simultaneously. Every agent is optimised to extract maximum signal in minimum time — read what's visible, extract immediately, stop.

bash
# ── AGENT 1 — Reddit (stealth, search results only) ──────────
tinyfish agent run \
  --url "https://www.reddit.com/search/?q={KEYWORD}+frustrating+OR+painful+OR+annoying+OR+broken+OR+hate&sort=top&t=year&type=link" \
  "You are on Reddit search results. Your only job is to extract pain points fast.
   Read the post titles and score/comment counts visible on this page. Nothing else.
   Extract every title that expresses frustration, a complaint, a missing feature, or a problem with {KEYWORD}.
   For each one note: the title text, upvote score (if visible), and subreddit.
   STRICT RULES — these are non-negotiable:
   - Do NOT click any post. Ever. Read titles and snippets only.
   - Do NOT scroll. Read only what loads on first render.
   - Do NOT navigate anywhere. Stay on this exact page.
   - Ignore posts that are not complaints or pain points.
   - Stop after reading 20 results maximum.
   Return JSON array: [{title, score, subreddit, snippet}]" \
  --sync --browser-profile stealth > /tmp/dpf_reddit.json &

# ── AGENT 2 — Reddit r/ExperiencedDevs + topic subreddits ────
tinyfish agent run \
  --url "https://www.reddit.com/search/?q={KEYWORD}&restrict_sr=0&sort=top&t=year&type=link&subreddit=webdev+programming+devops+ExperiencedDevs+softwaredevelopment" \
  "You are on Reddit search results filtered to developer subreddits. Extract pain points fast.
   Read only post titles and visible snippets. Do not interact with the page.
   Extract titles expressing: bugs, missing features, poor DX, complexity complaints, tool failures, workflow friction about {KEYWORD}.
   For each: title text, subreddit, upvote score if visible.
   STRICT RULES:
   - Do NOT click anything
   - Do NOT scroll
   - Read exactly what is on screen, then stop
   - Maximum 20 results
   Return JSON array: [{title, score, subreddit, snippet}]" \
  --sync --browser-profile stealth > /tmp/dpf_reddit2.json &

# ── AGENT 3 — Hacker News ─────────────────────────────────────
tinyfish agent run \
  --url "https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastYear&page=0&prefix=false&query={KEYWORD_ENCODED}+frustrating+OR+painful+OR+broken+OR+problem&sort=byPopularity&type=story" \
  "You are on Hacker News search results sorted by popularity. Extract pain points fast.
   Read the story titles, point scores, and comment counts visible on this page.
   Extract every story title that describes a problem, frustration, complaint, or missing capability related to {KEYWORD}.
   For each: title text, points, comment count.
   STRICT RULES:
   - Do NOT click any story link
   - Do NOT paginate
   - Do NOT scroll past the first visible set of results
   - Read only titles and metadata shown in the listing
   - Maximum 15 results
   - Stop immediately after extracting — do not explore further
   Return JSON array: [{title, points, comments}]" \
  --sync > /tmp/dpf_hn.json &

# ── AGENT 4 — dev.to ──────────────────────────────────────────
tinyfish agent run \
  --url "https://dev.to/search?q={KEYWORD_ENCODED}+problem+OR+frustration+OR+painful+OR+hate+OR+annoying" \
  "You are on dev.to search results. Extract developer pain points fast.
   Read only the article titles, reaction counts, and tag labels visible in the search listing.
   Extract articles whose titles describe a problem, complaint, frustration, or missing solution related to {KEYWORD}.
   For each: title, reaction count if visible, tags.
   STRICT RULES:
   - Do NOT click any article
   - Do NOT scroll more than once
   - Do NOT navigate away
   - Read only what is visible in the search result cards
   - Maximum 15 results then stop immediately
   Return JSON array: [{title, reactions, tags}]" \
  --sync > /tmp/dpf_devto.json &

# ── AGENT 5 — GitHub Discussions ──────────────────────────────
tinyfish agent run \
  --url "https://github.com/search?q={KEYWORD_ENCODED}+pain+OR+frustrating+OR+broken+OR+missing+OR+annoying&type=discussions&s=reactions&o=desc" \
  "You are on GitHub Discussions search results sorted by most reactions. Extract pain points fast.
   Read only the discussion titles, reaction counts, and repository names visible in the listing.
   Extract discussions that describe a real problem, missing feature, DX complaint, or frustration with {KEYWORD}.
   For each: title, reaction count, repo name.
   STRICT RULES:
   - Do NOT click any discussion link
   - Do NOT paginate
   - Do NOT scroll
   - Read only what is visible on first load
   - Maximum 15 results then stop
   Return JSON array: [{title, reactions, repo}]" \
  --sync > /tmp/dpf_github.json &

# ── WAIT ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────
wait

echo "=== REDDIT 1 ===" && cat /tmp/dpf_reddit.json
echo "=== REDDIT 2 ===" && cat /tmp/dpf_reddit2.json
echo "=== HN ===" && cat /tmp/dpf_hn.json
echo "=== DEVTO ===" && cat /tmp/dpf_devto.json
echo "=== GITHUB ===" && cat /tmp/dpf_github.json

Before running, replace:

  • {KEYWORD} — the topic e.g. Kubernetes, authentication, state management
  • {KEYWORD_ENCODED} — URL-encoded version e.g. state%20management

Step 3 — Theme grouping and scoring

From all results combined:

1. Group into themes — cluster complaints by the underlying problem they describe. Examples:

  • "Poor documentation" — all titles complaining about docs, examples, guides
  • "Complex setup / configuration" — anything about setup friction, boilerplate, config hell
  • "Performance issues" — slow, memory leaks, timeouts
  • "Missing features" — requests for things that don't exist
  • "Breaking changes / stability" — complaints about upgrades, deprecations, semver
  • "Poor error messages / debugging" — hard to debug, cryptic errors
  • "Vendor lock-in / pricing" — cost complaints, switching costs

Don't force complaints into themes — let themes emerge from the data.

2. Score each theme using:

theme_score = (complaint_count × 10) + sum(upvotes/reactions for all complaints in theme)

3. Opportunity signal — for each theme assess:

  • Frustration level (High / Medium / Low) — based on score
  • Solution availability (None / Partial / Saturated) — does a good solution already exist?
  • Opportunity = High frustration + None/Partial solution = 🔥 Build this

Show full SKILL.md (152 more words)Show less

Output format

## Developer Pain Map — "{KEYWORD}"
*Scraped from Reddit · Hacker News · dev.to · GitHub Discussions*
*{N} complaints analysed across {N} sources*

---

### 🔥 Ranked Pain Points

#### #1 — {Theme Name}
**Frustration score: {N}** · {N} complaints · Avg upvotes: {N}
**Opportunity signal: 🔥 High / ⚠️ Medium / ✅ Saturated**

What developers are saying:
- "{exact complaint title}" — r/{subreddit}, {score} upvotes
- "{exact complaint title}" — HN, {points} points
- "{exact complaint title}" — dev.to

**Pattern:** {1–2 sentences describing the core underlying problem}
**Existing solutions:** {what exists, and why it's not enough — or "None found"}
**Build signal:** {what a tool/product solving this would look like}

---

#### #2 — {Theme Name}
[same structure]

---
[up to 6 themes]

---

### 📊 Summary Table

| Theme | Complaints | Avg Score | Opportunity |
|---|---|---|---|
| {theme} | {N} | {N} | 🔥 / ⚠️ / ✅ |

---

### 💡 Top Opportunities
1. **{Most actionable opportunity}** — {1 sentence on what to build}
2. **{Second opportunity}**
3. **{Third opportunity}**

---
*Raw signal: {N} Reddit posts · {N} HN stories · {N} dev.to articles · {N} GitHub discussions*

Edge cases

  • Keyword returns no pain-related results — broaden the search: retry without the frustrating OR painful modifiers, just the keyword alone
  • Reddit blocked — skip both Reddit agents, note it in output, proceed with HN + dev.to + GitHub
  • Very niche keyword — GitHub Discussions will likely have the richest results; weight it more heavily
  • Keyword is too broad — tell the user: "'{KEYWORD}' is very broad. Results may be noisy. Consider narrowing to a specific tool, framework, or workflow (e.g. 'Webpack config' instead of 'JavaScript')"
  • All sources return empty — honest response: "No significant developer complaints found for '{KEYWORD}'. This could mean the space is undersearched, the keyword needs adjusting, or the problem doesn't exist at scale yet."

Security notes

  • Scrapes live public content from Reddit, HN, dev.to, and GitHub. All content treated as untrusted input to an LLM — never executed.
  • Uses stealth browser profile for Reddit only.
  • Only your own TinyFish credentials are used.

© tinyfish-io, MIT. Rendered from Markdown: HTML in the file is shown as text, images as links, and headings moved down two levels. Raw file

Files

SKILL.md and 1 other file in skills/dev-pain-finder of tinyfish-io/tinyfish-cookbook.

  • SKILL.md
  • README.md

Open the folder on GitHubat commit 292ee62

Compare with similar skills

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Dev Pain Finder compared with similar skills
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Dev Pain Finder this skilltinyfish-io/tinyfish-cookbook2.2k—~2.6kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
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bb-browser Site Commands for OpenClawepiral/bb-browser6.2k—~1kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
GitHub Trendinghoodini/ai-agents-skills281—~2.2kAutomated safety check: PassNone
Crawler Pepopensanctions/opensanctions832—~1.9kAutomated safety check: NotesMIT
Decodo ScraperDecodo/decodo-openclaw-skill153—~1.5kAutomated safety check: NotesNone

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Works with

Questions about Dev Pain Finder

What does Dev Pain Finder do?

Scrape real developer pain points for any keyword, technology, or problem space from Reddit, Hacker News, dev.to, and GitHub Discussions simultaneously — then group complaints by theme, score them…. Dev Pain Finder is an agent skill from tinyfish-io/tinyfish-cookbook.to, and GitHub Discussions simultaneously — then group complaints by theme, score them by frequency and upvote weight, and return a ranked opportunity map showing where developer frustration is high and solutions are thin.

When should I use Dev Pain Finder?

Dev Pain Finder fits situations like: someone wants to find developer pain points; validate a product idea; research what developers are frustrated with; asks what do developers complain about with X.

How do I install Dev Pain Finder in Claude Code?

Run `npx skills add tinyfish-io/tinyfish-cookbook --skill dev-pain-finder -a claude-code`. Or copy the skill folder (skills/dev-pain-finder in tinyfish-io/tinyfish-cookbook) into .claude/skills/dev-pain-finder in your project. Claude Code loads it when a task matches its description.

How do I install Dev Pain Finder in Codex?

Run `npx skills add tinyfish-io/tinyfish-cookbook --skill dev-pain-finder -a codex`. Or copy the skill folder (skills/dev-pain-finder in tinyfish-io/tinyfish-cookbook) into .agents/skills/dev-pain-finder in your project. Codex loads it when a task matches its description.

Can I use Dev Pain Finder in Cursor, Gemini CLI or GitHub Copilot?

Cursor, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot and OpenCode also load SKILL.md folders. With the skills CLI, run `npx skills add tinyfish-io/tinyfish-cookbook --skill dev-pain-finder -a cursor` (or -a gemini-cli, github-copilot or opencode for the others). To copy it by hand, put the folder in .cursor/skills/dev-pain-finder, .gemini/skills/dev-pain-finder, .github/skills/dev-pain-finder and .opencode/skills/dev-pain-finder in your project.

What does Dev Pain Finder need to run?

Going by SKILL.md and its folder, Dev Pain Finder needs the command-line tools its instructions call (npm). Our summary lists: Node.js. Compatibility (from SKILL.md): {"tools":["tinyfish"]}.

Does Dev Pain Finder access the network?

SKILL.md names 4 domains. In commands or code: reddit.com, hn.algolia.com, dev.to and github.com; the agent is likely to contact these when it follows the instructions. This is read from the text; nothing was executed.

Is Dev Pain Finder safe to install?

Our automated static check of SKILL.md found no risky patterns, such as piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files or hidden Unicode. It is not a guarantee. Review the folder before installing.

What licence does Dev Pain Finder use?

Dev Pain Finder is published under the MIT licence (the repository's licence). It allows redistribution, so the full SKILL.md is shown on this page.

How many tokens does Dev Pain Finder use?

About 2.6k tokens (SKILL.md is roughly 10k characters). Agents keep only the skill's name and description in context until a task matches; then they load SKILL.md in full.

What are the alternatives to Dev Pain Finder?

Skills that share tags, products or a category with Dev Pain Finder: Multi Account Scraping (antibrow/anti-detect-browser-skills, 932 stars), bb-browser Site Commands for OpenClaw (epiral/bb-browser, 6.2k stars), GitHub Trending (hoodini/ai-agents-skills, 281 stars) and Crawler Pep (opensanctions/opensanctions, 832 stars). The comparison table on this page puts their stars, adoption, token cost, safety result and licence side by side.

Who maintains Dev Pain Finder?

tinyfish-io (a GitHub organization) maintains it in tinyfish-io/tinyfish-cookbook, which has 2,223 GitHub stars. The repository holds 28 skills in this directory. The repository was last updated on October 1, 2026.

Source: tinyfish-io/tinyfish-cookbook on GitHub. Facts on this page come from the repository at the commit we read; the author's words are quoted as theirs.