hackernews
Hacker News API for stories and comments. Use when user mentions "Hacker News", "HN", "Y Combinator", or asks about tech news.
By vm0-ai · 3,138 installs
npx skills add vm0-ai/vm0-skills --skill hackernews
Source repository · Upstream listing
How to Use
1. Get Top Stories
Fetch IDs of the current top 500 stories:
2. Get Best Stories
Fetch the best stories (highest voted over time):
3. Get New Stories
Fetch the newest stories:
4. Get Ask HN Stories
Fetch "Ask HN" posts:
5. Get Show HN Stories
Fetch "Show HN" posts:
6. Get Job Stories
Fetch job postings:
Item Details
7. Get Story/Comment/Job Details
Fetch full details for any item by ID. Replace <item id with the actual item ID:
Response fields:
Field Description
id Unique item ID
type story , comment , job , poll , pollopt
by Username of author
time Unix timestamp
title Story title (stories only)
url Story URL (if external link)
text Content text (Ask HN, comments)
score Upvote count
descendants Total comment count
kids Array of child comment IDs
8. Get Multiple Stories with Details
Fetch top 5 stories with full details. Replace <item id with the actual item ID:
9. Get Story with Comments
Fetch a story and its top level comments. Replace <story id with the actual story ID:
Then for each comment ID in the kids array, replace <comment id with the actual comment ID:
User Data
10. Get User Profile
Fetch user details. Replace <username with the actual username:
Response fields:
Field Description
id Username
created Account creation timestamp
karma User's karma score
about User bio (HTML)
submitted Array of item IDs submitted
11. Get User's Recent Submissions
Fetch a user's recent submissions. Replace <username with the actual username:
Real time Updates
12. Get Max Item ID
Get the current largest item ID (useful for polling new items):
13. Get Changed Items and Profiles
Get recently changed items and profiles (for real time updates):
Practical Examples
Fetch Today's Top 10 with Scores
Find High Scoring Stories (100+ points)
Get Latest AI/ML Related Stories
API Endpoints Summary
Endpoint Description
/v0/topstories.json Top 500 stories
/v0/beststories.json Best stories
/v0/newstories.json Newest 500 stories
/v0/askstories.json Ask HN stories
/v0/showstories.json Show HN stories
/v0/jobstories.json Job postings
/v0/item/{id}.json Item details
/v0/user/{id}.json User profile
/v0/maxitem.json Current max item ID
/v0/updates.json Changed items/profiles
Guidelines
1. No rate limits documented : But be respectful, add delays for bulk fetching
2. Use jq for filtering : Filter JSON responses to extract needed data
3. Cache results : Stories don't change frequently, cache when possible
4. Batch requests carefully : Each item requires a separate API call
5. Handle nulls : Some fields may be null or missing (e.g., url for Ask HN)
6. Unix timestamps : All times are Unix timestamps, convert as needed