Hacker News Search

Search and monitor Hacker News stories, comments, and users via the Algolia HN Search API. No API key required.

When to Use

User asks about Hacker News discussions on a topic
User wants to find HN posts about a company, product, or technology
User wants to monitor HN for mentions of something
User asks "what's trending on HN" or "what did HN think about X"
User wants to find Show HN / Ask HN / Launch HN posts

API Overview

Base URL:

https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1

Two search endpoints:

```
/search
```
— Relevance-sorted (best for finding specific topics)
```
/search_by_date
```
— Date-sorted (best for monitoring / recent activity)

Rate Limits: 10,000 requests/hour (generous, no auth needed)

How to Search

Step 1: Build the URL

https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search?query=QUERY&tags=TAG&hitsPerPage=N&numericFilters=FILTERS

Step 2: Fetch with

web_fetch

Use

web_fetch

to call the API. Response is JSON.

Parameters

Parameter	Description	Example
`query`	Search terms (URL-encoded)	`query=openai+gpt`
`tags`	Filter by type (see below)	`tags=story`
`hitsPerPage`	Results per page (max 1000)	`hitsPerPage=20`
`page`	Page number (0-indexed)	`page=0`
`numericFilters`	Numeric filters (see below)	`numericFilters=points>100`

Tag Filters

Use

tags

to filter by content type:

Tag	Description
`story`	Stories only
`comment`	Comments only
`show_hn`	Show HN posts
`ask_hn`	Ask HN posts
`front_page`	Currently on front page
`author_USERNAME`	Posts by a specific user
`story_ID`	Comments on a specific story

Combine tags with commas (AND) or parentheses with commas (OR):

```
tags=story,show_hn
```
→ Show HN stories (AND)
```
tags=(story,comment)
```
→ Stories OR comments

Numeric Filters

Filter	Description
`points>N`	Minimum points/upvotes
`num_comments>N`	Minimum comments
`created_at_i>TIMESTAMP`	After Unix timestamp
`created_at_i<TIMESTAMP`	Before Unix timestamp

Combine with commas:

numericFilters=points>100,num_comments>50

Date Ranges

To search within a time window, use Unix timestamps with

created_at_i

Calculate the current Unix timestamp first (e.g., via

exec: date +%s

), then subtract:

Window	Subtract from now
Last 24 hours	`- 86400`
Last 7 days	`- 604800`
Last 30 days	`- 2592000`

Example: if now is

1705312200

, last 7 days =

numericFilters=created_at_i>1704707400

Response Format

Each hit contains:

json

{
  "objectID": "12345",
  "title": "Story Title",
  "url": "https://example.com/article",
  "author": "username",
  "points": 150,
  "num_comments": 42,
  "created_at": "2024-01-15T10:30:00Z",
  "created_at_i": 1705312200,
  "story_text": "Text for Ask HN / Show HN (HTML)",
  "_tags": ["story", "author_username", "story_12345"]
}

For comments, hits also include:

json

{
  "comment_text": "The comment body (HTML)",
  "story_id": 12345,
  "story_title": "Parent Story Title",
  "story_url": "https://example.com",
  "parent_id": 12344
}

The response wrapper includes:

json

{
  "hits": [...],
  "nbHits": 1000,
  "page": 0,
  "nbPages": 50,
  "hitsPerPage": 20
}

Constructing HN Links

Story:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id={objectID}

Comment:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id={objectID}

User:

https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id={author}

Step-by-Step Instructions

Searching for Stories on a Topic

URL-encode the query

Fetch:

https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search?query=YOUR_QUERY&tags=story&hitsPerPage=10

Parse the JSON response
For each hit, present: title, points, num_comments, author, date, HN link, and original URL

Finding Recent/Trending Discussions

Calculate Unix timestamp for your time window (e.g., 7 days ago)

Fetch:

https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search?query=YOUR_QUERY&tags=story&numericFilters=points>50,created_at_i>TIMESTAMP&hitsPerPage=10

Sort results by points or comments for "trending"

Getting Comments on a Story

Get the story's objectID from a search

Fetch:

https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search?tags=comment,story_STORYID&hitsPerPage=20

Present comment_text, author, points for each

Monitoring a Topic (Show Recent Mentions)

Use
```
/search_by_date
```
instead of
```
/search
```

Fetch:

https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search_by_date?query=YOUR_QUERY&tags=(story,comment)&hitsPerPage=20

Results are newest-first — useful for "what's new about X on HN"

Finding a User's Posts

Fetch:

https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search?tags=author_USERNAME,story&hitsPerPage=20

For their comments:
```
tags=author_USERNAME,comment
```

Output Format

Present results as a clean list:

### HN Results for "query" (N total)

1. **Story Title** (150 pts, 42 comments)
   By username · Jan 15, 2024
   🔗 https://example.com/article
   💬 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12345

2. ...

For comments:

### HN Comments on "Story Title"

1. **username** (12 pts) · Jan 15, 2024
   > First ~200 chars of the comment text...
   💬 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12345

Error Handling

Empty results: Tell the user no results were found. Suggest broadening the query or removing filters.
API error / timeout: Retry once. If still failing, inform the user the HN search API may be temporarily down.
Rate limited (429): Unlikely at 10k/hr, but if hit, wait 60 seconds and retry.
Malformed response: Check the URL construction — common issues are unencoded special characters in the query.

Examples

Example 1: "What's HN saying about Rust?"

Fetch: https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search?query=rust+programming&tags=story&hitsPerPage=5&numericFilters=points>50

Example 2: "Find Show HN posts about AI agents from the last month"

# Calculate timestamp for 30 days ago, then:
Fetch: https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search_by_date?query=ai+agents&tags=show_hn&numericFilters=created_at_i>TIMESTAMP&hitsPerPage=10

Example 3: "What has pg posted recently?"

Fetch: https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search_by_date?tags=author_pg&hitsPerPage=10

Data Source

Algolia HN Search API — Free, no authentication required. Indexes all public Hacker News content in near real-time.

hn-search

NPX Install

Tags

SKILL.md Content

Hacker News Search

When to Use

API Overview

How to Search

Step 1: Build the URL

Step 2: Fetch with
`web_fetch`

Parameters

Tag Filters

Numeric Filters

Date Ranges

Response Format

Constructing HN Links

Step-by-Step Instructions

Searching for Stories on a Topic

Finding Recent/Trending Discussions

Getting Comments on a Story

Monitoring a Topic (Show Recent Mentions)

Finding a User's Posts

Output Format

Error Handling

Examples

Example 1: "What's HN saying about Rust?"

Example 2: "Find Show HN posts about AI agents from the last month"

Example 3: "What has pg posted recently?"

Data Source