Hacker News API

Name: Hacker News API API
Brand: Hacker News API
Availability: InStock

★ Only Publicly Available SpecSocial MediaSocial Listeningnone10 EndpointsREST

For Agents

Pull Hacker News stories, comments, user profiles, and live ranked feeds (top, new, best, Ask HN, Show HN, jobs) without authentication.

Quickstart

Get started with Hacker News API in minutes using your preferred integration method.

# Add to your MCP client config (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf)
{
  "jentic": {
    "url": "https://api.jentic.com/mcp",
    "auth": "oauth"
  }
}

# Then ask your agent:
"list top hacker news stories"

# → Jentic returns the GET /events tool with parameter schema, agent executes.

Capabilities

What an agent can do with Hacker News API API.

Fetch a single Hacker News item by id and read its title, url, score, and kids

Retrieve a user profile with karma, submitted ids, and account creation time

List the current top, new, and best story ids in ranked order

Pull the latest Ask HN and Show HN story ids for community Q&A and launches

GET STARTED

Start building with Hacker News API API

Explore with Jentic

View OpenAPI Spec

Jentic publishes the only available OpenAPI specification for Hacker News API, keeping it validated and agent-ready.

The official Hacker News API is hosted on Firebase and provides read-only access to all public Hacker News data. Agents can fetch any item (story, comment, job, poll, or poll option) by id, look up user profiles, and pull live ranked feeds for top, new, best, Ask HN, Show HN, and job stories. The API returns JSON over HTTPS and requires no authentication. It is ideal for trend monitoring, citation lookup, and community sentiment analysis.

Use Cases

Patterns agents use Hacker News API API for, with concrete tasks.

★ Trend and Sentiment Monitor

Watch the Hacker News top and new feeds for stories matching a brand, product, or technology and surface a digest with comment sentiment. The agent polls /topstories.json and /newstories.json, fetches each item via /item/{itemId}.json, and walks the kids array to read the comment thread. Useful for PR teams, founders monitoring launch reception, and competitive intelligence.

Fetch /topstories.json, retrieve each of the top 30 stories via /item/{itemId}.json, and return any whose title or url contains the keyword 'jentic'.

Show HN Launch Tracker

Build a feed of new Show HN posts in your category and notify the team when a competing launch appears. The agent pulls /showstories.json, fetches each item, filters by keyword or domain, and posts matches to a chat channel. Setup is straightforward because the API requires no authentication.

Pull /showstories.json, fetch the first 50 items, and report any whose url matches a list of competitor domains.

Hiring Pipeline Watcher

Scrape Hacker News 'Who is hiring?' threads and the dedicated jobs feed to surface roles relevant to a candidate's profile. The agent fetches /jobstories.json, walks the items, and uses keyword matching against role descriptions. Recruiters use this pattern to source from a high-signal community without paying for a job board.

Fetch /jobstories.json, retrieve each item, and return roles whose text contains 'remote' and 'rust'.

Citation and Discussion Lookup

When a research agent encounters a URL, look up whether it has been discussed on Hacker News and surface the top comment thread. The agent searches by item id (from a third-party index) and pulls the discussion via /item/{itemId}.json. Useful for AI research assistants and content curation tools.

Given an item id 8863, GET /item/8863.json and return the title, score, and the first three top-level comment texts by walking the kids array.

Agent Discovery Through Jentic

AI agents discover Hacker News operations by searching Jentic with intents like 'list top hacker news stories' and receive the matching operation with its input schema. The agent invokes the call through Jentic without writing custom HTTP code. Because the API is unauthenticated, no vault entry is needed.

Use Jentic search 'list top hacker news stories' to find the GET /topstories.json operation and execute it to receive the top 500 ranked story ids.

Key Endpoints

10 endpoints — the official hacker news api is hosted on firebase and provides read-only access to all public hacker news data.

METHOD

PATH

DESCRIPTION

GET

/item/{itemId}.json

Fetch any item by id

GET

/user/{username}.json

Fetch a user profile

GET

/topstories.json

List the current top story ids

GET

/newstories.json

List the newest story ids

GET

/askstories.json

List the latest Ask HN ids

GET

/showstories.json

List the latest Show HN ids

GET

/jobstories.json

List the latest job ids

GET

/maxitem.json

Get the maximum item id currently posted

GET

/item/{itemId}.json

Fetch any item by id

GET

/user/{username}.json

Fetch a user profile

GET

/topstories.json

List the current top story ids

GET

/newstories.json

List the newest story ids

GET

/askstories.json

List the latest Ask HN ids

Why though Jentic?

Three things that make agents converge on Jentic-routed access.

Credential isolation

The Hacker News API is unauthenticated, so no credentials are stored. Jentic forwards requests directly without injecting any keys, simplifying the agent's tool surface.

Intent-based discovery

Agents search Jentic for intents like 'list top hacker news stories' or 'fetch a hacker news item' and receive the matching operation with input schema. No URL building required.

Time to first call

Direct integration: under an hour because the API is small and unauthenticated. Through Jentic: under five minutes - search, load, execute.

Related APIs

Alternatives and complements available in the Jentic catalogue.

Alternative

Reddit API

Larger community feed with subreddit-level filtering and authenticated posting.

Choose Reddit when the user needs broader community coverage, posting capability, or subreddit-specific monitoring.

Alternative

Stack Exchange API

Q&A network with structured tags and accepted-answer signals.

Pick Stack Exchange when the use case is technical question lookup with tag filters rather than real-time community discussion.

Complementary

Dev.to API

Cross-post discoveries from Hacker News into the dev.to feed.

Pair with dev.to when the agent surfaces HN trends and turns them into long-form posts on a developer blog.

Complementary

Product Hunt API

Pair Show HN tracking with Product Hunt launches for full launch coverage.

Combine with Product Hunt when the user wants to monitor both technical and consumer launch venues.

FAQs

Specific to using Hacker News API API through Jentic.

What authentication does the Hacker News API use?

None. The Hacker News Firebase API is fully public and read-only, so no API key, OAuth token, or signed request is needed. Agents can call any endpoint anonymously, which means no credential setup is required in Jentic.

How do I fetch a single Hacker News story and its comments?

GET /item/{itemId}.json returns the story object with its title, url, score, and a kids array of child comment ids. To build the full thread, fetch each id in kids recursively. There are no batch endpoints, so plan to make one request per node.

What live feeds does the Hacker News API provide?

The API exposes /topstories.json, /newstories.json, /beststories.json, /askstories.json, /showstories.json, and /jobstories.json. Each returns up to 500 item ids in ranked order. Combine with /item/{itemId}.json to hydrate the full story payloads.

Are there rate limits on the Hacker News API?

Hacker News does not publish formal rate limits, but sustained heavy polling will be throttled at the Firebase layer. For trend monitoring, poll the live feed endpoints every 30-60 seconds rather than continuously, and cache item payloads since they rarely change after a few hours.

How do I use the Hacker News API with AI agents through Jentic?

Run pip install jentic, then search 'list top hacker news stories' to find GET /topstories.json. Load the operation and execute. Because the API is unauthenticated, the only setup is signing up at https://app.jentic.com/sign-up to use the SDK.

Can I detect newly posted items in real time?

Yes. GET /maxitem.json returns the largest item id ever posted, and /updates.json returns recently changed items and profiles. Agents can poll maxitem and fetch any new ids since the last seen value to build a near-real-time stream.