# Hacker News Scraper – Search Stories, Comments & Show HN (`chris_elder/hacker-news-search`) Actor

Search Hacker News stories and comments by keyword, date range, points and type (story, comment, Ask HN, Show HN, front page) via the official HN Algolia API. Brand monitoring, trend research, lead discovery. $1 per 1,000 results.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/chris_elder/hacker-news-search.md
- **Developed by:** [Chris Elder](https://apify.com/chris_elder) (community)
- **Categories:** News, Developer tools, Social media
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

Pay per event

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.

Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md.

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.

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 examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below.

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`).

# README

## Hacker News Scraper – Search Stories, Comments, Ask HN & Show HN

Search all of **Hacker News** by keyword and get structured stories and comments (title, URL, points, comment count, author, text, date). The Actor uses the **official HN Search API (Algolia)**, so it scrapes no HTML, is fast and does not get blocked.

### Use cases

- **Brand and competitor monitoring:** schedule a daily run on your product name with `sort=date, sinceDays=1`
- **Trend and market research:** find top Show HN launches in your niche (`type=show_hn, minPoints=50`)
- **Lead discovery:** find people asking for a tool like yours in Ask HN threads and comments
- **AI and RAG datasets:** collect discussion text for analysis

### Input

| Field | Meaning |
|---|---|
| queries | Keywords (several allowed) |
| type | story, comment, ask_hn, show_hn, front_page, all |
| sort | relevance or date |
| sinceDays | Only the last N days |
| minPoints | Minimum score |
| maxResultsPerQuery | Up to 1,000 |

### Output

```json
{ "query": "apify", "id": "4123456", "type": "story", "title": "Show HN: ...", "url": "https://...", "hnUrl": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4123456", "author": "pg", "points": 120, "numComments": 45, "createdAt": "2026-10-01T12:00:00Z" }
```

📊 **Want these results in Google Sheets?** Send them straight to a Sheet with [Google Sheets Sync](https://apify.com/chris_elder/google-sheets-sync) – run it after this Actor, or add it on this Actor's **Integrations** tab so every run exports automatically.

### Pricing (pay per event)

$0.0005 per run start plus **$0.001 per result** ($1 per 1,000). Example: a daily brand monitor that returns 30 mentions costs about $0.03 per day.

### Integrations

Export as CSV, JSON or Excel, or send results to Slack, Google Sheets, Make, Zapier or n8n with Apify integrations and webhooks.

### Need the data done for you?

If you'd rather not set up runs yourself, the UK company behind these tools (GPT Shop Ltd) offers a fixed-price done-for-you scrape. Tell us the website and the fields you need, and you get a clean CSV or Google Sheet within 48 hours of the confirmed brief, up to 5,000 rows, for £149 or $179. If we can't get the data, you're refunded in full. [See the done-for-you scraper service](https://tools.gptshopltd.com/done-for-you-scraper/?utm_source=apify\&utm_medium=readme\&utm_campaign=hacker-news-search)

# Actor input Schema

## `queries` (type: `array`):

Keywords to search. Leave empty with type=front_page for the current front page.

## `type` (type: `string`):

Type.

## `sort` (type: `string`):

Sort.

## `sinceDays` (type: `integer`):

0 = no limit

## `minPoints` (type: `integer`):

Minimum points.

## `maxResultsPerQuery` (type: `integer`):

Max results per query.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "queries": [
    "apify"
  ],
  "type": "story",
  "sort": "date",
  "sinceDays": 0,
  "minPoints": 0,
  "maxResultsPerQuery": 100
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

No description

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "queries": [
        "apify"
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("chris_elder/hacker-news-search").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = { "queries": ["apify"] }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("chris_elder/hacker-news-search").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "queries": [
    "apify"
  ]
}' |
apify call chris_elder/hacker-news-search --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,chris_elder/hacker-news-search"
        }
    }
}
```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/34jYokYVJY0VOH56D/builds/dSunTIdg5wffwL676/openapi.json