👤 Hacker News User Profiles & Karma Scraper

Extract public Hacker News developer profiles, karma reputation points, account creation dates, bios, and recent submitted stories directly via the official Y Combinator Firebase API.

Engineered for tech recruiters, devtool developer advocates, open-source maintainers, and venture capital talent scouts.

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🥊 Why This Actor Beats the Competition

Feature	👤 This Actor (litezero)	🐢 HTML Parsing Puppeteer Scrapers	🔒 Algolia API Search
Speed	⚡ < 0.5s per profile	🐌 5–10 seconds per page	⏳ Only searches items, not user records
Pricing	💰 $1.20 / 1,000 profiles (Free Platform Usage)	💸 Heavy compute bill ($5–$15/run)	💳 Requires API keys & credits
Data Enrichment	📦 Karma + Bio + Submission Count + Recent Stories	⚠️ Fragile HTML table selectors	❌ Incomplete user stats
Anti-Bot Resiliency	🛡️ Official YC Firebase gateway, 0% blocks	🚫 Cloudflare / IP bans	🔑 Strict rate limit blocks
Setup Friction	🚀 Zero API keys required	🛠️ Headless Chrome setup	📝 Complex app registration

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🛠️ Step-by-Step: How to Use

Method 1: Apify Web Console (No-Code)

1. Enter a list of Hacker News usernames (e.g. pg, dang, sama, swyx, patio11).
2. Toggle whether to fetch recent submitted stories.
3. Click Start and export results to JSON, CSV, or Excel.

Method 2: Python SDK

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN")
run_input = {
    "usernames": ["pg", "dang", "sama", "swyx"],
    "includeRecentSubmissions": True,
    "maxSubmissions": 5
}

run = client.actor("litezero/hackernews-user-profile-scraper").call(run_input=run_input)
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(f"@{item['username']}: Karma {item['karma']} | {item['total_submissions_count']} submissions")

Method 3: Node.js SDK

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN' });
const run = await client.actor('litezero/hackernews-user-profile-scraper').call({
    usernames: ['swyx', 'patio11'],
    includeRecentSubmissions: true
});

const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(`Retrieved ${items.length} HN profiles.`);

Method 4: REST API / cURL

curl "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/litezero~hackernews-user-profile-scraper/runs?token=YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"usernames": ["sama", "pg"], "includeRecentSubmissions": true}'

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📥 Input Parameters

Parameter	Type	Required	Default	Description
usernames	array	Yes	["pg", "dang", "sama", "swyx"]	List of HN handles (strings or full profile URLs).
includeRecentSubmissions	boolean	No	true	Fetch title, URL, and score for top recent posts.
maxSubmissions	integer	No	5	Maximum recent submissions to fetch per user (1–15).

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📤 Output Data Dictionary & Sample JSON

{
  "username": "pg",
  "karma": 164280,
  "created_timestamp": 1171823387,
  "created_date_iso": "2007-02-18T18:29:47.000Z",
  "account_age_years": 19.6,
  "about": "Paul Graham, co-founder of Y Combinator.",
  "total_submissions_count": 6842,
  "recent_submissions": [
    {
      "id": 41284920,
      "type": "story",
      "title": "How to Do Great Work",
      "url": "https://paulgraham.com/greatwork.html",
      "score": 1245,
      "time_iso": "2024-08-18T14:20:00.000Z",
      "comments_count": 482
    }
  ],
  "profile_url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=pg",
  "scraped_at": "2026-10-04T06:00:00.000Z"
}

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💡 Top Commercial Use Cases

1. Tech Recruiting & Dev Sourcing: Identify top technical contributors, prolific writers, and senior startup engineers by HN karma and comment history.
2. Influencer & Founder Outreach: Find contact info, personal blogs, and project links left in user bios for high-signal developer relations.
3. Developer Credibility Scoring: Build reputation verification scoring into developer job platforms and Web3 contributor networks.