# Hacker News Search & Comments (official API) (`llarochelle/hacker-news-search`) Actor

Search Hacker News stories, Ask HN, Show HN, jobs, polls and the front page through the official Algolia HN API. Filters by date, author, points and comments. Optional full comment threads, flattened with depth. No scraping, no proxies.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/llarochelle/hacker-news-search.md
- **Developed by:** [Luigi Larochelle](https://apify.com/llarochelle) (community)
- **Categories:** News, Developer tools
- **Security:** Limited permissions
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $1.00 / 1,000 stories

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

## Hacker News Search & Comments

Search Hacker News and export stories with their full comment threads, through the **official, free Algolia HN Search API**. No scraping of news.ycombinator.com, no login, no proxies.

### What you get

- Front page, newest stories, Ask HN, Show HN, jobs, polls, or a full-text search.
- Filters: date range, author, minimum points, minimum comments.
- Sorting by relevance or by date.
- Optional comment threads, flattened in thread order with `depth` and `parentId`, so a spreadsheet or an LLM can read them.

### Output (one row per story)

```json
{
  "id": 22238335,
  "type": "story",
  "title": "Why Discord is switching from Go to Rust",
  "url": "https://blog.discordapp.com/...",
  "hnUrl": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22238335",
  "author": "Sikul",
  "points": 1582,
  "numComments": 642,
  "createdAt": "2020-02-04T17:30:40Z",
  "text": null,
  "isAskHn": false,
  "isShowHn": false,
  "comments": [
    { "id": 22238816, "parentId": 22238335, "depth": 0, "author": "...", "createdAt": "...", "text": "...", "hnUrl": "..." }
  ]
}
```

### Pricing

Pay per event: one event per story, one per comment when `includeComments` is on. Nothing is charged for API errors.

### Limits

- The API returns at most 1,000 pages of 100 hits per query. Narrow the date range to go deeper.
- Comments are those indexed by Algolia; a story updated in the last minutes may lag slightly.

### Use cases

Developer sentiment on a product, competitor mentions, launch monitoring (Show HN), hiring trends (jobs), research datasets.

# Actor input Schema

## `mode` (type: `string`):

Front page, latest stories, Ask HN, Show HN, jobs, polls, or a full-text search.

## `query` (type: `string`):

Words to search in titles, URLs and text. Leave empty to list everything that matches the other filters.

## `sortBy` (type: `string`):

Relevance (points and recency weighted) or date (newest first).

## `author` (type: `string`):

Only items posted by this HN username.

## `dateFrom` (type: `string`):

Only items created on or after this date (YYYY-MM-DD).

## `dateTo` (type: `string`):

Only items created on or before this date (YYYY-MM-DD).

## `minPoints` (type: `integer`):

Skip stories with fewer points.

## `minComments` (type: `integer`):

Skip stories with fewer comments.

## `maxItems` (type: `integer`):

Stop after this many stories.

## `includeComments` (type: `boolean`):

Fetch every comment of each story (one extra API call per story). Comments are returned flattened, each with its depth and parent id.

## `maxCommentsPerStory` (type: `integer`):

Cap on comments kept per story, in thread order.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "mode": "search",
  "query": "web scraping",
  "sortBy": "relevance",
  "minPoints": 0,
  "minComments": 0,
  "maxItems": 100,
  "includeComments": false,
  "maxCommentsPerStory": 300
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

All stories and comments returned by the run, in the default dataset.

# 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 = {
    "query": "web scraping"
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("llarochelle/hacker-news-search").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 = { "query": "web scraping" }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("llarochelle/hacker-news-search").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 '{
  "query": "web scraping"
}' |
apify call llarochelle/hacker-news-search --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

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

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/iKOQezvAWqVfdFIRq/builds/pfyCkIsKKUKzAvG7a/openapi.json