# Hacker News Scraper — Top, New, Best, Ask, Show Stories (`gochujang/hacker-news-scraper`) Actor

Scrape Hacker News stories by mode (top/new/best/ask/show). Uses the official HN Firebase API — no key required. Outputs title, URL, author, score, comment count, and optional top comments. PPE $0.002/item.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/gochujang/hacker-news-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [Hojun Lee](https://apify.com/gochujang) (community)
- **Categories:** News, Developer tools, AI
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

Pay per usage

This Actor is paid per platform usage. The Actor is free to use, and you only pay for the Apify platform usage, which gets cheaper the higher subscription plan you have.

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

## 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

Scrape Hacker News stories using the official [HN Firebase API](https://github.com/HackerNews/API). No API key required. Supports top, new, best, Ask HN, and Show HN story feeds.

### Features

- **5 story feeds**: top, new, best, ask, show
- **Optional comments**: fetch top-level comments per story
- **Score filter**: skip low-score stories
- **Fast parallel fetching**: up to 10 concurrent requests
- **PPE pricing**: pay only for what you scrape

### Input

| Parameter | Type | Default | Description |
|-----------|------|---------|-------------|
| `mode` | string | `top` | Story feed: `top`, `new`, `best`, `ask`, `show` |
| `maxItems` | integer | `30` | Max stories to scrape (max: 500) |
| `includeComments` | boolean | `false` | Fetch top comments per story |
| `maxComments` | integer | `10` | Max top-level comments per story |
| `minScore` | integer | `0` | Minimum score filter (0 = disabled) |

#### Example Input

```json
{
  "mode": "top",
  "maxItems": 50,
  "includeComments": true,
  "maxComments": 5,
  "minScore": 100
}
```

### Output

Each story produces a dataset record:

```json
{
  "id": 12345,
  "type": "story",
  "title": "Show HN: I built a tool to ...",
  "url": "https://example.com/article",
  "hn_url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12345",
  "author": "pg",
  "score": 500,
  "comments_count": 142,
  "created_at": "2026-09-01T10:00:00+00:00",
  "text": null,
  "top_comments": [
    {
      "id": 12346,
      "author": "dang",
      "text": "Great post!",
      "created_at": "2026-09-01T10:05:00+00:00"
    }
  ]
}
```

### Pricing (PPE)

| Event | Price |
|-------|-------|
| Actor start | $0.005 |
| Per story scraped | $0.002 |

Example: 100 stories = $0.005 + (100 × $0.002) = **$0.205**

### API

This actor uses the official Hacker News Firebase REST API:

- Base: `https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/`
- No authentication required
- No rate limits (per HN guidelines)

### Keywords

Hacker News scraper, HN API, Y Combinator news, HN stories, tech news scraper, Ask HN, Show HN, Firebase API, developer news

# Actor input Schema

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

Which story list to fetch: top (front page), new (newest), best (highest voted all-time), ask (Ask HN), show (Show HN).

## `maxItems` (type: `integer`):

Maximum number of stories to fetch. Max 500.

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

If enabled, fetches the top comments for each story (up to maxComments).

## `maxComments` (type: `integer`):

Number of top-level comments to fetch per story when includeComments is enabled.

## `minScore` (type: `integer`):

Only include stories with a score >= this value. Set to 0 to disable filtering.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "mode": "top",
  "maxItems": 30,
  "includeComments": false,
  "maxComments": 10,
  "minScore": 0
}
```

# Actor output Schema

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

No description

## `summary` (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 = {};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("gochujang/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 = {}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("gochujang/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 '{}' |
apify call gochujang/hacker-news-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,gochujang/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/AoFdudDY2uOKbd5d9/builds/LIL2qlrSGMYEGLagQ/openapi.json