Hacker News Comment Search — JSON / API / MCP

Search public Hacker News comments by keyword; export text, dates and discussion links.

For: Developer-research and community-listening automation.

Quick start

Enter a public search keyword, choose a result cap and select Start. Each query returns structured public records without a headless browser, residential proxy, private authentication or paid upstream service. Results can be downloaded from the Apify dataset as JSON, CSV or Excel; Apify Tasks and schedules make repeated searches possible. The output includes a source input field so users can merge the results from multiple queries.

Example input

{
  "sources": [
    "python"
  ],
  "maxTotalItems": 30,
  "maxItemsPerSource": 30
}

Example output shape (illustrative, not actual live data)

{
  "status": "ok",
  "text": "Illustrative discussion comment",
  "published": "2026-10-01",
  "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=123",
  "storyId": "2"
}

Output format

status, text, published, url, storyId, parentId, input. Successful records have status=ok. A malformed or unavailable input may yield a status=error diagnostic row, which is not charged as a result item. The Actor does not fabricate content.

Scope and limits

Search uses the public Algolia comment index; this is not a complete thread walker or guaranteed historical archive. Results may lag. We do not export author identity.

The Actor accepts at most 10 public search queries per run (5 through the App Store Input tab), with a hard cap of 250 successful records, 40 upstream requests, 2MB upstream response size, and a bounded 256MB memory configuration. Individual upstream responses or requests may fail. A success result never implies complete coverage of all content at the upstream provider.

Pricing and usage

The Apify Pricing tab is the source of truth for the active Pay Per Event prices. The intended charge is one successful output row per result-item event, with a small start event. Upstream errors do not get a result-item event. Set a maximum run charge and begin with 3 records. Do not assume a low result limit guarantees a positive unit margin for this publisher.

Problems and support

Check input spelling, avoid private queries, then try a single broad term with 3 results. Public search provider APIs can be temporarily rate-limited, return zero matches or change their schema. Never bypass access restrictions. Contact the publisher via the Apify Actor Issues tab with public reproduction steps, not access tokens, credentials or personal data.

This independently published utility is not affiliated with Apple, Algolia or Hacker News. Follow the upstream provider's applicable terms, attribution and permitted data uses. No uptime, paying-customer or dataset completeness claims are made.