renderstack lets you search Stack Overflow from the terminal and render results into a clean HTML page with two views:
- 👤 Human View — beautifully formatted questions and answers (title, score, tags, body preview, answers)
- 🤖 LLM View — plain-text block you can copy-paste into ChatGPT/Claude/etc.
No more hallucinated Stack Overflow answers from LLMs — everything comes straight from the Stack Overflow API.
Inspired by Andrej Karpathy's rendergit and renderscholar.
The problem: When you ask ChatGPT/Claude about debugging issues, they sometimes make up fake Stack Overflow posts or give outdated answers.
The solution: Search real Stack Overflow questions/answers, then feed the clean results to your AI assistant. Get accurate, up-to-date solutions with proper context.
You'll need Python 3.10+. Then install directly from GitHub:
pip install git+https://github.com/yourusername/renderstack.gitOr clone and install locally:
git clone https://github.com/yourusername/renderstack.git
cd renderstack
pip install -e .Search Stack Overflow from the terminal:
renderstack "react useEffect memory leak"This will:
- Search Stack Overflow API for relevant questions
- Fetch the top answers for each question
- Rank and filter results
- Generate an HTML file
- Auto-open it in your browser
Control the number of results:
renderstack "python async await" --pool-size 100 --max-results 10--pool-size N— Number of questions to fetch from API (default: 50)--max-results N— Number of top questions to keep after ranking (default: 20)--max-answers N— Max answers per question (default: 3)
Ranking modes:
renderstack "typescript generics" --mode acceptedAvailable modes:
- most-voted → Highest score (default)
- recent → Newest questions first
- accepted → Only questions with accepted answers
- unanswered → Questions without accepted answers (good for finding knowledge gaps)
- active → Most recently active discussions
Output control:
renderstack "django rest framework" -o myresults.html --no-open-o FILE— Save to specific file (default: temp file)--no-open— Don't auto-open in browser
renderstack "react hooks best practices" \
--pool-size 80 \
--max-results 15 \
--mode accepted \
--max-answers 2This will:
- Fetch 80 questions from Stack Overflow
- Filter to top 15 questions that have accepted answers
- Show 2 answers per question
- Rank by vote score
Each mode changes how questions are ranked and filtered:
| Mode | Description | Best For |
|---|---|---|
most-voted |
Highest score questions | Finding canonical solutions |
recent |
Newest questions first | Latest techniques, new library versions |
accepted |
Only questions with ✅ accepted answers | Validated solutions |
unanswered |
Questions without accepted answers | Contributing, or finding edge cases |
active |
Most recently active | Ongoing discussions, evolving topics |
The HTML output includes two views:
- Clean, readable cards for each question
- Shows: title, score, answer count, views, tags, date
- Question body preview
- Top answers with scores and accepted status
- Answers highlighted with green border if accepted
- Click-through links to full Stack Overflow posts
- Plain text in a
<textarea>for easy copying - Formatted for maximum AI comprehension:
- Clear separators between questions
- Emoji markers for structure (❓ 🔗 📊 🏷️ 💬)
- Code blocks preserved
- No HTML formatting
- Ready to paste into ChatGPT, Claude, or any AI assistant
Stack Overflow API has these rate limits:
- Without API key: 300 requests/day (by IP address)
- With API key: 10,000 requests/day (free)
For most users, 300/day is plenty. If you need more:
- Register for a free API key: https://stackapps.com/apps/oauth/register
- Set it in your environment:
export STACKOVERFLOW_API_KEY=your_key_here - Or pass it directly:
renderstack "query" --api-key your_key_here
The tool works perfectly fine without an API key for typical usage.
Quick debugging workflow:
# 1. Search for your error
renderstack "TypeError: Cannot read property of undefined" --mode recent --max-results 5
# 2. Switch to LLM view in browser
# 3. Copy the text
# 4. Paste into Claude/ChatGPT with: "Help me fix this based on these Stack Overflow answers"Finding best practices:
renderstack "react performance optimization" --mode most-voted --pool-size 100Exploring new libraries:
renderstack "tailwind css dark mode" --mode recent --max-results 10Contributing to Stack Overflow:
renderstack "python asyncio" --mode unanswered --max-results 20
# Find questions you can answer!Clone the repo:
git clone https://github.com/yourusername/renderstack.git
cd renderstackInstall in editable mode:
pip install -e .Run tests:
python -m renderstack.stackoverflow # Test API client
python -m renderstack.cli "test query" # Test full workflowProject structure:
renderstack/
├── renderstack/
│ ├── __init__.py
│ ├── cli.py # Command-line interface + HTML generation
│ ├── models.py # Data models (Question, Answer)
│ └── stackoverflow.py # Stack Overflow API client
├── .gitignore
├── README.md
├── pyproject.toml
└── requirements.txt
Contributions welcome! Ideas for new features:
- More ranking algorithms (relevance score, trending)
- Save/load favorite searches
- Export to Markdown format
- Filter by specific tags
- Integration with other Q&A sites (Reddit, GitHub Discussions)
- Uses the official Stack Overflow API (no web scraping!)
- Respects API rate limits with built-in throttling
- Works offline after initial fetch (HTML is self-contained)
- All code snippets in answers are preserved with proper formatting
- Handles edge cases (deleted users, no answers, etc.)
MIT © 2025 Your Name
- Inspired by rendergit by Andrej Karpathy
- Built on the Stack Exchange API
- Similar to renderscholar for academic papers
Found a bug? Have a feature request?
- Open an issue: https://github.com/yourusername/renderstack/issues
- Stack Overflow API docs: https://api.stackexchange.com/docs