Hacker News Trends, Show HN & Developer Tech Radar

---

📋 Instant Sample Output (JSON Preview)

Fast, schema-compliant JSON format ready for automated pipelines (n8n, Make, Zapier, Clay):

[
  {
    "title": "Show HN: Open Source MCP Server for B2B APIs",
    "points": 240,
    "commentsCount": 85,
    "author": "devfounder",
    "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40001"
  }
]

⚡ Value Proposition: High-Agency Engineering vs Legacy Scrapers

Most data collection scrapers waste your budget by spinning up heavy headless browsers (Chrome/Puppeteer), demanding expensive $15/GB residential proxies, and crashing when layouts change.

Hacker News Launch & Developer Trend Monitor is architected for production reliability:

• Zero Proxy Tax ($0.00): Executes via direct, hyper-optimized asynchronous HTTP/DNS connections in < 512MB RAM.
• Pay-Per-Event Predictability: You only pay for verified, delivered records ($0.003 / record).
• Zero-Charge-on-Error Guarantee: Upstream outages, empty deltas, or unresolvable targets emit diagnostic baseline records completely free ($0.00).
• Sub-5 Second Turnaround: Pure REST/HTTP pipelines deliver datasets in seconds rather than minutes.

---

🤖 AI Agent & Model Context Protocol (MCP) Integration

This Actor is packaged as an AI-first tool compatible with Claude Desktop, Cursor IDE, Windsurf, and LangChain / CrewAI agentic workflows.

Agent Trigger Rule:

"Use this tool when the user requests track developer tool launches, show hn threads, competitor mentions, and sentiment velocity using the official hacker news api. or needs structured JSON data for hacker-news-launch-and-trend-monitor without browser overhead or manual cleanup."

Claude Desktop / Cursor claude_desktop_config.json Snippet:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "hacker-news-launch-and-trend-monitor": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@apify/mcp-server-apify"],
      "env": {
        "APIFY_TOKEN": "YOUR_APIFY_API_TOKEN"
      }
    }
  }
}

---

💰 Unit Economics & Cost Comparison

Feature	Hacker News Launch & Developer Trend Monitor	Traditional Puppeteer / Playwright Scraper
Residential Proxy Bandwidth	$0.00 (Zero Proxy Tax)	$12.00 – $25.00 / GB
Execution Memory Required	256MB – 512MB RAM	2048MB – 4096MB RAM
Pricing Model	$0.003 / record (Pay-Per-Event)	Monthly SaaS / Expensive Compute Runtime
Failure Billing Policy	Zero-Charge on Error ($0.00)	Billed for full runtime on crash
Execution Speed	2–5 Seconds	45–120 Seconds

---

⚡ 1-Click Integration Blueprints

1. Sync Execution via cURL / REST API

Run the Actor synchronously and retrieve dataset records immediately in one HTTP call:

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/deepaksheoran172~hacker-news-launch-and-trend-monitor/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{}'

2. Python (apify-client)

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN")
run_input = {}

# Start Actor run and wait for completion
run = client.actor("deepaksheoran172/hacker-news-launch-and-trend-monitor").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch structured dataset records
items = client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).list_items().items
for record in items:
    print(record)

3. n8n / Make.com Webhook Automation

• Node Type: HTTP Request Node
• Method: POST
• URL: https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/deepaksheoran172~hacker-news-launch-and-trend-monitor/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN
• Headers: Content-Type: application/json
• Body: Raw JSON {}

---

📥 Input Parameters

All properties feature built-in defaults; providing an empty object {} triggers a reliable default scan.

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
query	string	Show HN	Primary search keywords, brand name, individual identifier, or entity query string to filter records and discover relevant intelligence.
maxItems	integer	10	Maximum total records to extract and deliver to the output dataset during this run (for example 50 or 100 records) to govern compute time and data volume.

---

📤 Output Dataset Specification

Output records strictly adhere to the official Apify dataset schema:

Field Name	Type	Description
storyId	string	Hacker News Object ID
title	string	Story headline title
author	string	Submitting username
points	integer	Upvote score count
numComments	integer	Total comment count
url	string	Outbound link URL
hnUrl	string	Hacker News discussion link

---

❓ Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Q: How does Pay-Per-Event (PPE) pricing protect my budget?

A: Unlike compute-time billing where you pay while waiting for slow responses, Pay-Per-Event charges only for legitimate data rows delivered. If an upstream service is down, the Actor pushes a diagnostic status record and does not bill you.

Q: Can I run this on a recurring schedule?

A: Yes! Use Apify's built-in Scheduler (Cron), or trigger it via Zapier, Make.com, or n8n on a daily, weekly, or hourly cadence.

Q: Are external proxies or browser engines required?

A: No. All requests use lightweight, high-performance asynchronous HTTP networking. There is zero proxy markup and zero browser overhead.

---

🔍 High-Intent Search & Buyer Keywords

sam.gov api keyless, grants.gov opportunity json feed, ofac sdn sanctions screening api, uk companies house scraper, sec edgar 8-k 10-k monitor, cisa kev cve feed, osv dependency vulnerability scanner