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Scout 2 min read

Your Scout inbox, day by day

The Scout delivers into an inbox grouped by day, starting with a month of backfill. Here is what arrives, what a quiet day means, and how to tune the keywords when the net feels wrong.

Last updated July 15, 2026

Every scout has an inbox, and the inbox is the product: the conversations that survived the gate, grouped by day, newest first, each with its reason and its drafted reply. Here is how to read it, and what to do when it feels too quiet or too loose.

01 · The backfillThe first scan reaches back

The very first scan does not start from zero. It backfills the last month of Reddit and Hacker News, judges everything it finds, and delivers what made the cut. You start with a real picture of your niche instead of an empty screen, and from then on the scout runs daily.

02 · The daily dropWhat a day looks like

Each day groups its kept conversations with a count. A digest email lands only on days with something new; a quiet day sends nothing. Inside the inbox, tabs keep your progress straight: New for what you have not handled, Saved for threads you are coming back to, Replied and Dismissed for what is done. Filters cut by source (Reddit or HN) and by kind (conversations, brand mentions, competitor mentions).

03 · Reading the silenceQuiet days and quiet weeks

A quiet day means the scan ran and the gate kept nothing: no core asks, no mentions, nothing worth your time. The inbox says so plainly, with the count of threads read and kept, because that is the judgment working rather than the product idling.

If a whole week runs quiet, the scout says that too, with an honest read: either your niche is genuinely quiet right now, or the keywords are cut too tight. It will offer to review the keywords, and it will also tell you it is fine to leave them alone. Nilkick would rather show you nothing than noise.

04 · SettingsTuning the net

The scout’s settings are yours to adjust at any time:

  • Keywords, in three groups: your product (up to 2), competitors (up to 4), and problem phrases (up to 4), plus any you add yourself. If the week feels quiet, a broader problem phrase is usually the best widener.
  • Subreddits, up to 8, added and removed freely.
  • Sources: Hacker News can be toggled alongside your subreddits.
  • Reply defaults: choose Auto, Brief, Balanced, or Detailed, and how readily Scout may suggest your product. These shape new conversations from the next scan and never loosen community rules.
  • The digest email, on or off.

Changes apply from the next scan. You can also link your Reddit username here, so every draft carries an honest read of what that account can safely do; see account standing.

Pausing the scout

Pausing stops the daily scans in one tap and resumes them in one tap, for holidays or busy weeks. It does not stop billing, and the app says so right where you pause. If you want to stop paying, cancel instead; see the Scout subscription for the difference.

FAQ

Common questions

Because the gate kept nothing. The scan ran, read the day’s threads, and judged none of them worth your reply: no core asks, no mentions, nothing your ideal customer said that deserves you. The inbox shows how many threads were read and how many were kept, so you can see the scan worked. A quiet day is the judgment working, not the scout idling.
Related
The Scout: daily conversations
The Scout is a daily layer for one product: every day it sweeps Reddit and Hacker News for the conversations that matter, judges them with the same gate as a launch, and drafts each reply. You post everything yourself. Here is what it is and how it fits with the rest of Nilkick.
The five-minute daily ritual
Working the Scout takes five to ten minutes a day: read each card's reason, dismiss what does not deserve you, and for the threads worth joining, copy the drafted reply, make it sound like you, and post it from your own account. Here is the loop, including the reply-shape variants.
The Scout subscription
The Scout is the one subscription Nilkick sells: $20 per month per scout, through Stripe, cancel anytime with no retention flow. Here is how billing works, what pausing does and does not do, what happens when a card fails, and what you keep after canceling.