# Reddit & Hacker News Scraper: Viral Social Trends (`laborious_rumor/social-viral-trend-reddit-hn-pulse-scraper`) Actor

Track trending topics, user sentiment, and high buying-intent discussions across Reddit, HackerNews, GitHub, and Dev.to in real time.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/laborious_rumor/social-viral-trend-reddit-hn-pulse-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [Lakshay Papneja](https://apify.com/laborious_rumor) (community)
- **Categories:** Social media, Marketing, Developer tools
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $2.00 / 1,000 viral discussion & intent signals

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?

An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes.
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.

Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md.

## 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.

Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run.

For examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below.

Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`).

# README

## Social Viral Trend, Reddit, HackerNews, GitHub & Dev.to Pulse Monitor (v2.0)

Monitor **4 major developer & buyer communities (`Reddit`, `HackerNews`, `GitHub`, and `Dev.to`)** simultaneously in a single run to capture viral discussions, open-source launches, customer pain points, and **high buying-intent leads**.

***

### 🔥 Why Growth Teams, Founders & AI Agents Use This Actor

1. **4-in-1 Multi-Platform Aggregation**: Queries **Reddit (`r/...` search JSON)**, **HackerNews (Algolia API)**, **GitHub Repositories (`api.github.com`)**, and **Dev.to Technical Articles** concurrently.
2. **Buying & Switching Intent Classifier**: Automatically labels posts asking for *"alternatives to X"*, *"best tool for Y"*, *"looking for recommendations"*, or *"pricing"* as **`High Buying / Switching Intent`** so your sales or community team can reply immediately.
3. **Normalized Virality Score (0–100) & Sentiment**: Calculates a unified cross-platform Virality Score (`0–100`) and classifies sentiment (`Positive`, `Negative / Pain Point`, `Neutral`).

***

### ⚙️ Input Parameters

| Field | Type | Default | Description |
| :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- |
| `keywords` | `array` | `["AI agent", "MCP", "web scraping"]` | Keywords, brand names, or competitor names to track. |
| `platforms` | `array` | `["hackernews", "reddit", "github", "devto"]` | Platforms to include in the run. |
| `subreddits` | `array` | `[]` | Optional subreddits to target on Reddit (e.g. `["SaaS", "LocalLLaMA"]`). |
| `maxItemsPerTopic` | `integer` | `8` | Max items per keyword per platform. |
| `onlyHighBuyingIntent` | `boolean` | `false` | Only output posts with High Buying / Switching Intent. |

# Actor input Schema

## `keywords` (type: `array`):

Keywords, competitor names, or pain points to monitor across communities.

## `platforms` (type: `array`):

Select which communities to scrape (hackernews, reddit, github, devto).

## `subreddits` (type: `array`):

Optional subreddits to restrict Reddit search to (e.g. SaaS, Entrepreneur, LocalLLaMA). Leave empty for all of Reddit.

## `maxItemsPerTopic` (type: `integer`):

Maximum number of top discussions/repos to extract per topic per platform.

## `onlyHighBuyingIntent` (type: `boolean`):

Filter results to only discussions asking for tool recommendations, alternatives, or pricing comparisons.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "keywords": [
    "AI agent",
    "MCP",
    "web scraping"
  ],
  "platforms": [
    "hackernews",
    "reddit",
    "github",
    "devto"
  ],
  "subreddits": [],
  "maxItemsPerTopic": 8,
  "onlyHighBuyingIntent": false
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (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 = {
    "keywords": [
        "AI agent",
        "MCP",
        "web scraping"
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("laborious_rumor/social-viral-trend-reddit-hn-pulse-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 = { "keywords": [
        "AI agent",
        "MCP",
        "web scraping",
    ] }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("laborious_rumor/social-viral-trend-reddit-hn-pulse-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 '{
  "keywords": [
    "AI agent",
    "MCP",
    "web scraping"
  ]
}' |
apify call laborious_rumor/social-viral-trend-reddit-hn-pulse-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,laborious_rumor/social-viral-trend-reddit-hn-pulse-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/YcmWR5qCNH4M6XLg4/builds/h9RUWnOgNppQDv63J/openapi.json