Tech News Monitor - Hacker News Brand & Keyword Tracker

Track brand mentions, competitor discussions, and market trends on Hacker News. Get structured data with sentiment analysis, engagement metrics, and match details — delivered as a clean dataset you can integrate into any workflow.

What It Does

This Actor monitors Hacker News via the official Algolia API for posts matching your configured keywords. It returns:

• Matched posts with title, author, URL, upvotes, and comments
• Keyword mentions with context snippets showing exactly where your keywords appear
• Sentiment analysis — positive, neutral, or negative
• Engagement scoring — low/medium/high based on upvotes
• Post categorization — announcement, review, problem report, recommendation request, comparison, tutorial, Ask HN, hiring, or discussion
• Monitoring summary — aggregate stats across all matches

Use Cases

• Brand monitoring: Track mentions of your product/company
• Competitor tracking: Monitor discussions about competitors
• Product feedback: Find what people are saying about your industry
• Market research: Identify trends and sentiment shifts
• Lead generation: Discover people asking for recommendations in your space
• Crisis detection: Spot negative sentiment spikes early

Input Parameters

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
keywords	array of strings	["saas", "startup"]	Keywords to search for. Posts matching ANY keyword are returned.
excludeKeywords	array of strings	[]	Posts containing ANY of these keywords are excluded.
timeFilter	string	"week"	Only search posts from this period: hour, day, week, month, year, all
maxResults	integer	50	Max posts to fetch from HN (1–100)
minPoints	integer	1	Minimum upvotes required. Set higher to filter low-engagement posts.

Example Input

{
  "keywords": ["open source", "LLM"],
  "excludeKeywords": ["nsfw"],
  "timeFilter": "week",
  "maxResults": 50,
  "minPoints": 10
}

Output Example

{
  "match_type": "hn_post",
  "post_id": "48745445",
  "title": "Box3D, an open source 3D physics engine",
  "author": "makepanic",
  "external_url": "https://box2d.org/posts/2026/06/announcing-box3d/",
  "hn_url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48745445",
  "points": 518,
  "num_comments": 128,
  "created_at": "2026-07-01T12:12:17+00:00",
  "matched_keywords": ["open source"],
  "mentions": [
    {
      "keyword": "open source",
      "matched_text": "open source",
      "position": 10,
      "context_snippet": "Box3D, an open source 3D physics engine"
    }
  ],
  "sentiment": {
    "label": "neutral",
    "score": 0.0,
    "positive_count": 0,
    "negative_count": 0
  },
  "category": "discussion",
  "engagement_level": "high"
}

Summary Output

The final record is a summary with aggregate statistics:

{
  "type": "monitoring_summary",
  "total_posts_fetched": 50,
  "total_matches": 4,
  "keyword_match_counts": {"open source": 4},
  "sentiment_breakdown": {"neutral": 4},
  "category_breakdown": {"discussion": 3, "announcement": 1},
  "engagement_breakdown": {"high": 1, "medium": 1, "low": 2},
  "average_points": 153.2,
  "top_post": {
    "title": "Box3D, an open source 3D physics engine",
    "hn_url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48745445",
    "points": 518
  }
}

Pricing

Pay Per Event (PPE) — $0.003 per matched result.

You only pay for posts that actually match your keywords. No results = no charge.

Why This Actor?

1. Reliable API: Uses the official HN Algolia API — no scraping, no blocking, no rate limit issues
2. Structured data: Clean JSON output with sentiment, categories, and engagement scores
3. Context snippets: See exactly where and how your keyword appears
4. Smart filtering: Exclude keywords, set minimum engagement thresholds
5. Zero maintenance: No proxy rotation, no anti-bot measures needed

Tips for Best Results

• Use specific keywords (e.g., "Stripe Atlas" instead of just "Stripe") to reduce noise
• Set minPoints to 20+ to focus on high-engagement discussions
• Use excludeKeywords to filter out irrelevant topics
• Combine with timeFilter: "day" for daily brand monitoring automation

Integration Ideas

• Connect to Slack/Discord via webhook for real-time alerts
• Pipe to Airtable/Notion for a brand mention database
• Feed into n8n/Zapier workflows for automated responses
• Use with Apify Dataset export for CSV/Excel reports

Support

Open an issue on GitHub or message me on Apify Community Discord.

Changelog

v0.1 — Initial release with keyword matching, sentiment analysis, and engagement scoring.