# Hacker News Scraper (`mangudai/hacker-news-scraper`) Actor

Scrape Hacker News stories, comments, Ask HN, Show HN, and polls. Search by keyword, filter by points or comments, sort by relevance or date. Get title, url, author, points, comment count, and timestamps as clean JSON. No login, no API key.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/mangudai/hacker-news-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [Mangudäi](https://apify.com/mangudai) (community)
- **Categories:** Developer tools, News, Open source
- **Stats:** 1 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $0.09 / 1,000 results

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 Scraper

Pull stories, comments, Ask HN, Show HN, and polls from Hacker News. Search by keyword, filter by points or comment count, and sort by relevance or date. No login, no API key.

### What it does

The scraper reads the public Hacker News search API and returns one clean row per item. Point it at the front page for the current top stories, or run a keyword search across the full HN archive going back to 2007. It pages through results for you and can pull large date-ordered histories.

### What you can pull

- Front page stories, or a keyword search across all of Hacker News.
- Filter to stories, comments, Ask HN, Show HN, or polls.
- Minimum points and minimum comment count filters.
- One or more authors.
- Sort by relevance or newest first.

### Input

- `query`: search term. Leave empty to pull the front page or a whole content type.
- `contentType`: `front_page`, `story`, `comment`, `ask_hn`, `show_hn`, `poll`, or `all`.
- `sortBy`: `relevance` or `date`. Date sort can page past the 1,000-result search cap using time windows.
- `minPoints`, `minComments`: numeric filters.
- `authors`: usernames to restrict to.
- `maxItems`: cap on total items collected.
- `proxyConfiguration`: optional Apify Proxy settings.

### Output

Each row includes the item id, type, title, url, author, points, comment count, creation time (ISO and Unix), story text or comment text, the parent and story ids for comments, the raw tags, and a direct link to the item on news.ycombinator.com.

Example row:

```json
{
  "id": "48865019",
  "type": "story",
  "title": "Apple sues OpenAI, accuses ex-employees of stealing trade secrets",
  "url": "https://9to5mac.com/2026/07/10/apple-sues-openai-trade-secret-theft/",
  "author": "stock_toaster",
  "points": 895,
  "numComments": 449,
  "createdAt": "2026-07-10T20:47:09Z",
  "hnUrl": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48865019"
}
```

### Notes

Data comes from the public HN search API, which serves the same content you see on the site. Relevance search returns up to 1,000 results per query, a limit of the underlying API. For larger pulls, use date sort, which walks backward through time in windows.

# Actor input Schema

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

Keyword to search across Hacker News. Leave empty to pull a whole content type such as the front page.

## `contentType` (type: `string`):

Which items to return.

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

Relevance (best match) or date (newest first). Date sort can page past the 1,000-result cap.

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

Only return items with at least this many points.

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

Only return items with at least this many comments.

## `authors` (type: `array`):

Restrict to these Hacker News usernames.

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

Maximum number of items to collect.

## `proxyConfiguration` (type: `object`):

Optional. Route requests through Apify Proxy.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "contentType": "front_page",
  "sortBy": "relevance",
  "maxItems": 50,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true
  }
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `datasetItems` (type: `string`):

The Hacker News items collected in this run.

# 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 = {
    "proxyConfiguration": {
        "useApifyProxy": true
    }
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("mangudai/hacker-news-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 = { "proxyConfiguration": { "useApifyProxy": True } }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("mangudai/hacker-news-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 '{
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true
  }
}' |
apify call mangudai/hacker-news-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,mangudai/hacker-news-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/zp6AK6IJtlBFrblmY/builds/uZESbfRRz0DQfJI1t/openapi.json