Stack Exchange setup
Questions on the Stack Exchange sites your analysis picks.
What it does
Stack Exchange runs Stack Overflow and 170-odd Q&A sites on other topics, with a public API.
- Searching recent questions on the sites listed in each project's profile (for example
webappsorsoftwarerecs)
Get set up
- Optional: register an app at stackapps.com to get a key
- Paste the key in Settings → Conversations → Stack Exchange key
Where it goes
In the dashboard, open Settings and find the Conversations (optional keys) section. Secret values are encrypted before they're saved and only their last four characters are ever shown again.
STACKEXCHANGE_KEYFree at stackapps.com: raises the daily limit from 300 to 10,000 requests.
Staying free
Larvabot only asks about the few sites your profile lists, well within the keyless limit for most projects.
How the quota guard works →Larva tip
Answers on Stack Exchange must solve the question on their own and say you made the tool. Link-only answers get deleted.
Fallback order
For conversations, Larvabot tries these in order and skips any that aren't set up, are out of free quota or are busy.
- 1Hacker News search (Algolia)
- 2Stack Exchange API
- 3YouTube comments (Data API)
- 4GitHub issues & discussions
- 5Bluesky search
- 6Lemmy (federated communities)
- 7Discourse forums
- 8Web discussions (your search keys)