# Hacker News Tracker — Top Stories, Score & Keyword Filter (`gochujang/hacker-news-tracker`) Actor

Scrape Hacker News top/new/best/ask/show stories with scores, comment counts, domains, and HN links. Filter by minimum score, domain, or keywords. No API key required. Perfect for trend monitoring, content curation, and tech pulse tracking. $0.005/story.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/gochujang/hacker-news-tracker.md
- **Developed by:** [Hojun Lee](https://apify.com/gochujang) (community)
- **Categories:** Developer tools, News
- **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/platform/actors/running/actors-in-store#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 Tracker

> Scrape **Hacker News top, new, best, Ask HN, and Show HN** stories with scores, comment counts, domains, and direct links. Filter by score, domain, or keywords. No API key required. **$0.005/story.**

### ⚡ Run in 30 seconds

Runs instantly — just set your feed and limit:

- **Feed**: top / new / best / ask / show / job
- **Limit**: 1–500 stories
- **Min score**: filter out low-signal posts

***

### Use cases

- **Trend monitoring**: What's hot in tech today?
- **Content curation**: Find top posts from specific domains (github.com, arxiv.org)
- **AI/ML research**: Filter by keywords like "LLM", "agent", "startup"
- **Competitive intelligence**: Track posts about specific companies
- **Newsletter research**: Automated daily HN digest

***

### Output fields

```json
{
  "rank": 1,
  "title": "AMD acquires Taalas to boost inference performance",
  "url": "https://www.theregister.com/...",
  "domain": "theregister.com",
  "hn_url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12345678",
  "score": 656,
  "author": "throwaway123",
  "comment_count": 501,
  "time_unix": 1754524800,
  "_type": "story",
  "fetched_at": "2026-08-07T09:48:02Z"
}
```

***

### Input options

| Field | Default | Description |
|-------|---------|-------------|
| `feed` | `top` | `top`, `new`, `best`, `ask`, `show`, `job` |
| `limit` | `30` | Number of stories (max 500) |
| `minScore` | `0` | Minimum upvote score filter |
| `filterDomain` | — | Only stories from this domain (e.g. `github.com`) |
| `filterKeywords` | — | Only stories whose title contains any keyword |

***

### Pricing

- **$0.001** flat per run start
- **$0.005** per story returned

Example: 30 top stories = **$0.151**

***

### Data source

Uses the official [Hacker News Firebase API](https://github.com/HackerNews/API) — free, no authentication required, always up-to-date.

# Actor input Schema

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

Which HN feed to fetch.

## `limit` (type: `integer`):

How many stories to return (max 500).

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

Only return stories with at least this many upvotes. 0 = no filter.

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

Only return stories from this domain (e.g. 'github.com', 'techcrunch.com').

## `filterKeywords` (type: `array`):

Only return stories whose title contains at least one of these keywords (case-insensitive).

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "feed": "top",
  "limit": 30,
  "minScore": 0
}
```

# 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-tracker").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-tracker").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-tracker --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

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

```

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/j9b1CwpH9Fp1xfGyh/builds/Bx8kZBwNbpfJuAIrK/openapi.json