# Hacker News Scraper – Stories, Comments & Who's Hiring (`fetchsmith/hacker-news-scraper`) Actor

Search or browse Hacker News stories, comments, Ask HN, Show HN and Who's Hiring threads via the official Algolia API. Filter by points and date. Pay per item.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/fetchsmith/hacker-news-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [Fetch Smith](https://apify.com/fetchsmith) (community)
- **Categories:** News, Developer tools, AI
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 0.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

$1.00 / 1,000 items

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?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
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.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## 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.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

## Hacker News Scraper

Search or browse Hacker News (stories, comments, Ask HN, Show HN, jobs, and monthly **Who's Hiring** threads) using the official Algolia Search API — fast, reliable, no scraping fragility. Pay only per item returned.

### Use cases

- Track mentions of your product, company or keyword on HN
- Pull the newest **Who's Hiring** / **Who Wants to Be Hired** threads for job-market research
- Feed trending tech discussions into AI agents, newsletters or dashboards
- Build datasets of Show HN launches or Ask HN discussions by topic

### Input

| Field | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| `queries` | array | Keywords to search. Leave empty to just browse by tag/date. |
| `tags` | array | `story`, `comment`, `poll`, `ask_hn`, `show_hn`, `job` (default `["story"]`) |
| `includeComments` | boolean | Fetch comment text when `tags` includes `comment` |
| `sortBy` | string | `relevance` or `date` (newest first) |
| `minPoints` | integer | Only items with at least this many points |
| `postedAfter` / `postedBefore` | string | ISO date bounds |
| `maxItemsPerQuery` | integer | Cap per query (up to 1000) |
| `maxResults` | integer | Overall cap |

### Output (one item per story/comment)

```json
{
  "id": "41930211",
  "type": "story",
  "title": "Show HN: FetchSmith – pay-per-use scraper APIs",
  "url": "https://fetchsmith.com",
  "hnUrl": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41930211",
  "author": "someuser",
  "points": 142,
  "numComments": 38,
  "createdAt": "2026-09-01T12:00:00.000Z",
  "query": "fetchsmith"
}
```

### Pricing

`result` — charged per item returned. Empty queries and failed pages are free.

### Tips

- For the current "Who is hiring?" thread: set `queries` to `["Ask HN: Who is hiring"]`, `tags: ["story"]`, `sortBy: "date"`, `maxItemsPerQuery: 1` to find the thread, or use `tags: ["comment"]` with `postedAfter` set to the 1st of the month to pull all replies.
- Use `sortBy: "date"` for a live monitoring feed of new mentions of your keyword.

Only publicly available data is collected via HN's official search API. Questions or feature requests: support@fetchsmith.com. Also available as a hosted API at https://fetchsmith.com/tools/hacker-news-scraper

Source code: https://github.com/Fetchsmith/fetchsmith/tree/main/actors/hacker-news-scraper

# Actor input Schema

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

Keywords to search for. Leave empty to browse by tag/date only (e.g. latest front-page stories or the newest Who's Hiring thread).

## `tags` (type: `array`):

story, comment, poll, ask\_hn, show\_hn, job, front\_page. Combine e.g. \["story"] for posts only.

## `includeComments` (type: `boolean`):

If tags includes 'comment', set true to fetch comment text too.

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

'relevance' ranks by search relevance and points; 'date' returns the newest items first.

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

Only return stories/comments with at least this many points.

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

e.g. 2026-01-01

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

e.g. 2026-09-01

## `maxItemsPerQuery` (type: `integer`):

Cap per search query/tag combination.

## `maxResults` (type: `integer`):

Overall cap across all queries.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "queries": [
    "apify"
  ],
  "tags": [
    "story"
  ],
  "includeComments": true,
  "sortBy": "relevance",
  "maxItemsPerQuery": 100,
  "maxResults": 200
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `dataset` (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"
    ],
    "tags": [
        "story"
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("fetchsmith/hacker-news-scraper").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"],
    "tags": ["story"],
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("fetchsmith/hacker-news-scraper").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"
  ],
  "tags": [
    "story"
  ]
}' |
apify call fetchsmith/hacker-news-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

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

```

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/lUUzKCDza75Jk0T8Y/builds/DxhJ5vv4Eb7V5mdqj/openapi.json