"""Fetch a sample of ALL LessWrong posts since START_DATE (no tag filter) for use as a baseline corpus to compare against AI-tagged posts. Pagination uses a `before` date cursor because the GraphQL endpoint caps `offset` (skip) at ~2000. Writes: data/lesswrong_all_posts.jsonl Usage: python fetch_lesswrong_all.py [--max N] """ import argparse import json import os import re import sys import time from pathlib import Path import requests PROJECT_DIR = os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__)) sys.path.insert(0, PROJECT_DIR) from config import START_DATE API = "https://www.lesswrong.com/graphql" OUT = Path(PROJECT_DIR) / "data" / "lesswrong_all_posts.jsonl" MIN_WORDS = 200 def strip_html(html): text = re.sub(r"<[^>]+>", " ", html or "") for esc, raw in [(" ", " "), ("&", "&"), ("<", "<"), (">", ">"), (""", '"'), ("'", "'")]: text = text.replace(esc, raw) text = re.sub(r"\s+", " ", text) return text.strip() def gql(query, variables=None): r = requests.post(API, json={"query": query, "variables": variables or {}}, timeout=60) r.raise_for_status() j = r.json() if "errors" in j: raise RuntimeError(f"GraphQL errors: {j['errors']}") return j["data"] QUERY = """ query GetPosts($limit: Int, $before: String, $after: String) { posts(input: {terms: {view: "new", limit: $limit, before: $before, after: $after}}) { results { _id title slug postedAt baseScore author wordCount contents { html } tags { name } user { displayName } } } } """ def fetch_all(max_posts=50000, batch=200): """Walk posts newest-first using a `before` cursor. Each batch sets `before` to one second prior to the oldest postedAt of the previous batch (to avoid re-fetching the boundary post).""" out = [] seen = set() before = None # first call: no upper bound -> get newest while len(out) < max_posts: variables = {"limit": batch, "after": START_DATE} if before is not None: variables["before"] = before data = gql(QUERY, variables) results = data.get("posts", {}).get("results", []) if not results: print(" no more results", flush=True) break new = [r for r in results if r.get("_id") and r["_id"] not in seen] for r in new: seen.add(r["_id"]) out.extend(new) # Find the oldest postedAt in this batch to use as next cursor dates = [r.get("postedAt") for r in results if r.get("postedAt")] if not dates: print(" batch had no postedAt, stopping", flush=True) break oldest = min(dates) print(f" fetched {len(out)} (oldest in batch={oldest[:19]}, new={len(new)})", flush=True) # If oldest is at/before START_DATE, we're done if oldest[:10] <= START_DATE: print(f" reached START_DATE={START_DATE}", flush=True) break if len(new) == 0: # Cursor didn't advance -> nothing new came back; bail print(" no new posts in this batch, stopping", flush=True) break before = oldest # next page = strictly older than this time.sleep(0.4) return out def main(): ap = argparse.ArgumentParser() ap.add_argument("--max", type=int, default=50000) args = ap.parse_args() OUT.parent.mkdir(parents=True, exist_ok=True) posts = fetch_all(args.max) kept = 0 with open(OUT, "w") as f: for p in posts: pid = p.get("_id") body = strip_html((p.get("contents") or {}).get("html") or "") wc = p.get("wordCount") or len(body.split()) if not pid or not body or wc < MIN_WORDS: continue f.write(json.dumps({ "id": pid, "title": p.get("title"), "slug": p.get("slug"), "posted_at": p.get("postedAt"), "body": body, "word_count": wc, "tags": [t["name"] for t in (p.get("tags") or [])], "base_score": p.get("baseScore"), "author": (p.get("user") or {}).get("displayName") or p.get("author"), }) + "\n") kept += 1 print(f"=== done: {kept} posts >={MIN_WORDS} words -> {OUT} ===", flush=True) if __name__ == "__main__": main()