Hacker News Metrics — Story Scores & Comment Counts

Hacker news story metrics from the official public API give agents and dashboards numerical story IDs, scores, timestamps and comment counts, without author profiles, titles or comment text. AI agents can call and pay through Apify MCP. List event rates are $0.001 per story; start is extra, usage is included and failed results are uncharged.

Example result

Example record for the minimal input under How to use it, as this Actor returned it on 2026-10-31 in a run of its production image; the record is kept unchanged with the release.

{
  "id": 8863,
  "score": 104,
  "publishedUnix": 1175714200,
  "commentCount": 71,
  "storyId": "input-1",
  "ok": true
}

How to use it

Start a run in Apify Console, by API or from an agent with an input like this one — it is the input Apify runs every day to test this Actor:

{"storyIds": ["8863"]}

Field	Type	Meaning
storyIds	array	One record for each input; only nonpersonal technical metadata is returned.

Events and prices

Event	Title	Charged when	FREE / BRONZE	SILVER	GOLD / PLATINUM / DIAMOND
story-measured	Story measured	One successful input with a readable result written to the dataset.	$0.001	$0.0009	$0.0008

Platform usage is not passed through. Apify's automatic actor-start event remains $0.00005 per started GB (one GB or less counts once). The synthetic dataset-item event is absent. Charge limits stop further paying work; unprocessed inputs receive uncharged errors. Completed readable pending events are settled on abort.

Worked cost example: ten successful story measured events cost $0.01 at list, plus actor start. Failures are not included in that count.

Call it from an agent

Through Apify's MCP server (https://mcp.apify.com) use call-actor:

{
  "actor": "hermeskd/hacker-news-story-metrics",
  "input": {
    "storyIds": [
      "8863"
    ]
  },
  "callOptions": {
    "maxTotalChargeUsd": 0.01,
    "timeout": 600
  },
  "waitSecs": 30
}

Then call get-dataset-items with the returned defaultDatasetId. Dedicated tool URL: https://mcp.apify.com?tools=hermeskd/hacker-news-story-metrics

Output fields

Field	Meaning
storyId	One-based input reference (input-1, input-2, ...); never the supplied value.
ok	True for a returned result; a failure is never charged.
id	Matching numeric story ID.
score	Current nonnegative story score.
commentCount	Descendant count; zero if the optional field is absent.
publishedUnix	Source creation time in Unix seconds.
error	Failure, always uncharged.

Limits and run time

1–50 decimal story IDs, at most 10 digits each; story records only. No feeds, search, users, author names, titles, text, comments, or external story URLs. Deleted, dead and non-story items refuse uncharged. Metrics change with the source.

The default run timeout is 600 seconds. Local production-image tests at 128 MB and one CPU: three cold typical calls took 7.65–9.37 seconds wall time, peak typical RSS 81.6 MiB; the ten-event benchmark took 8.27 seconds. Apify cold startup, billing and the deploy pricing floor remain unverified.

Inputs are correlated by their one-based list position. Caller strings, URL paths, queries, credentials and exception text are never copied into identities or errors. Duplicate entries retain separate positions.

Errors

Code	Meaning
http_error	The source answered an unsuccessful HTTP status.
download_failed	The request or connection failed within its bounded deadline.
source_invalid	The source response is malformed or outside the documented supported shape.
not_found	The requested technical record is unavailable.
robots_disallowed	robots.txt forbids fetching the URL; no request was made to it.
blocked_host	The host is on the deny-list or resolves to a private or local address; no request was made.
too_large	The response exceeded the size cap.
timeout	The input did not finish within the run's time budget.
invalid_input	The run input passed the input schema but cannot be used; the message names the field.
internal_error	Unexpected internal failure; private exception details are excluded.
charge_limit_reached	The run reached its maximum total charge; this input was not processed.

No failure record is charged. A run fails only when all input outcomes are Actor-side failures; caller errors and a mixture of caller/Actor failures do not fail the run.

Sources and terms

Only process content you have the right to process. URL fetches obey HermesBot robots-group selection, the shared deny-list, public-address checks on connections and redirects, honest identity, deadlines and rate limits. No caller credentials, cookies, CAPTCHA solving, residential proxies or evasion. Y Combinator public Hacker News API JSON endpoints, robots-obeying. Public numerical facts only; MIT API documentation read on 2026-10-30. No user content is republished.

Not affiliated

Not affiliated with or endorsed by the source publishers or Apify.

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Changelog

• 1.0 (2026-10-30) — 2026-10-30: first factory-built version..