# Hacker News Scraper - Front Page & Comments

**Use case:** 

Fetch the Hacker News front page or any thread as clean Markdown. Useful for trend monitoring, newsletters and LLM summaries. A lightweight Hacker News API alternative.

## Input

```json
{
  "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4058874",
  "formats": [
    "markdown"
  ]
}
```

## Output

```json
{
  "url": {
    "label": "URL",
    "format": "link"
  },
  "fetch.httpStatusCode": {
    "label": "Status",
    "format": "number"
  },
  "metadata.title": {
    "label": "Title",
    "format": "text"
  },
  "markdown": {
    "label": "Markdown",
    "format": "text"
  }
}
```

## How it works

### 1. Sign up on Apify or log in

The Web Fetch Actor is ready to run with the inputs already set for "Hacker News Scraper - Front Page & Comments". [Sign up or log in](https://console.apify.com/create-task-from-example/hsVYZpmaVQc07uv7R) and you'll land in Apify Console with a copy of this exact task.

### 2. Start the "Hacker News Scraper - Front Page & Comments" task

The Web Fetch Actor will start running based on the input automatically. You can also change all the input fields, like URL and output formats, to match your specific use case.

### 3. Receive the "Hacker News Scraper - Front Page & Comments" output

Monitor the progress in real time. You will be notified as soon as your dataset is complete and ready for review. Each result includes data such as URL, status, title, and more.

### 4. Integrate into your workflow

The final output is delivered in JSON, CSV, or Excel format, ready to be plugged into your workflow. You can also [run the "Hacker News Scraper - Front Page & Comments" task via API](https://apify.com/apify/web-fetch.md).

## FAQ

### Does Hacker News have an API?

Yes. There’s the official Firebase API and the Algolia HN Search API. The Firebase API returns IDs that you have to walk one item at a time. This task returns the whole page or thread in one call.

### Can I get comments from a thread?

Yes. Pass any news.ycombinator.com/item?id=… URL to get the post and its comments as Markdown.

### Which pages can I scrape?

The front page, Ask HN, Show HN, newest, best, and any individual thread.

### Is it real-time?

Yes. Each run fetches the live page. Algolia, by comparison, is indexed periodically.

## About this Actor

This example demonstrates how to use [Web Fetch](https://apify.com/apify/web-fetch.md) with a specific input configuration. Visit the [Actor detail page](https://apify.com/apify/web-fetch.md) to learn more, explore other use cases, and run it yourself.


## How to integrate an Actor?

This Task's input is already configured above. Use it as-is rather than inventing a new one.

Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run.

For full API examples (JavaScript, Python, CLI, MCP, OpenAPI), see this Task's Actor page: https://apify.com/apify/web-fetch.md

Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`).