hackernews

Use this skill when you need to:

• Fetch top/best/new stories from Hacker News
• Get story details including title, URL, score, comments
• Retrieve comments and discussion threads
• Look up user profiles and their submissions
• Monitor trending tech topics and discussions

---

No API key required! The Hacker News API is completely free and open.

Base URL: https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0

---

> Important: When using $VAR in a command that pipes to another command, wrap the command containing $VAR in bash -c '...'. Due to a Claude Code bug, environment variables are silently cleared when pipes are used directly.

> ```bash

> bash -c 'curl -s "https://api.example.com" -H "Authorization: Bearer $API_KEY"'

> ```

1. Get Top Stories

Fetch IDs of the current top 500 stories:

```bash

bash -c 'curl -s "https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/topstories.json"' | jq '.[:10]'

```

2. Get Best Stories

Fetch the best stories (highest voted over time):

```bash

bash -c 'curl -s "https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/beststories.json"' | jq '.[:10]'

```

3. Get New Stories

Fetch the newest stories:

```bash

bash -c 'curl -s "https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/newstories.json"' | jq '.[:10]'

```

4. Get Ask HN Stories

Fetch "Ask HN" posts:

```bash

bash -c 'curl -s "https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/askstories.json"' | jq '.[:10]'

```

5. Get Show HN Stories

Fetch "Show HN" posts:

```bash

bash -c 'curl -s "https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/showstories.json"' | jq '.[:10]'

```

6. Get Job Stories

Fetch job postings:

```bash

bash -c 'curl -s "https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/jobstories.json"' | jq '.[:10]'

```

---

7. Get Story/Comment/Job Details

Fetch full details for any item by ID. Replace with the actual item ID:

```bash

curl -s "https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/item/.json"

```

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 with the actual item ID:

```bash

bash -c 'curl -s "https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/topstories.json"' | jq '.[:5][]' | while read id; do

curl -s "https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/item/${id}.json" | jq '{id, title, score, url, by}'

done

```

9. Get Story with Comments

Fetch a story and its top-level comments. Replace with the actual story ID:

```bash

curl -s "https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/item/.json" | jq '{title, score, descendants, kids}'

```

Then for each comment ID in the kids array, replace with the actual comment ID:

```bash

curl -s "https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/item/.json" | jq '{by, text, score}'

```

---

10. Get User Profile

Fetch user details. Replace with the actual username:

```bash

curl -s "https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/user/.json"

```

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 with the actual username:

```bash

curl -s "https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/user/.json" | jq '.submitted[:5]'

```

---

12. Get Max Item ID

Get the current largest item ID (useful for polling new items):

```bash

curl -s "https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/maxitem.json"

```

13. Get Changed Items and Profiles

Get recently changed items and profiles (for real-time updates):

```bash

curl -s "https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/updates.json"

```

---

Fetch Today's Top 10 with Scores

```bash

bash -c 'curl -s "https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/topstories.json"' | jq '.[:10][]' | while read id; do

curl -s "https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/item/${id}.json" | jq -r '"\(.score) points | \(.title) | \(.url // "Ask HN")"'

done

```

Find High-Scoring Stories (100+ points)

```bash

bash -c 'curl -s "https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/topstories.json"' | jq '.[:30][]' | while read id; do

curl -s "https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/item/${id}.json" | jq -r 'select(.score >= 100) | "\(.score) | \(.title)"'

done

```

Get Latest AI/ML Related Stories

```bash

bash -c 'curl -s "https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/topstories.json"' | jq '.[:50][]' | while read id; do

curl -s "https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/item/${id}.json" | jq -r 'select(.title | test("AI|GPT|LLM|Machine Learning|Neural"; "i")) | "\(.score) | \(.title)"'

done

```

---

| 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 |

---

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