Hacker News Search — Stories & Mentions to JSON

Search Hacker News stories by keyword and get title, points, comments, author, date and URL as JSON — $0.002 per story.

Hacker News is where launches break and reputations are made. This actor turns a keyword into the matching HN stories with their scores and discussion volume, so brand-monitoring, trend-spotting, and launch-tracking agents can catch the conversation while it is live.

What this actor does

• Search all Hacker News stories by keyword, brand, product, or topic
• Each result: title, points, comment count, author, created date, story URL + HN object ID
• Filter by postedAfter for "mentions since my last check" monitoring
• Batch many terms per run; cap spend with maxResults
• Agent-ready: flat JSON with sourceUrl + scrapedAt on every item

You only pay for successful results — failed or empty lookups cost nothing.

Why pick this Actor

• Points and comment counts on every item for signal-weighting; postedAfter makes it a scheduled brand or keyword monitor
• Per-result pricing ($0.002/result) with a hard maxResults spend cap — empty lookups cost $0
• Flat, stable JSON schema with sourceUrl + scrapedAt on every item — citation-ready for RAG and grounding
• Batch many queries in one run; overlapping results are deduplicated and charged once
• MCP server, OpenAPI schema, and LangChain/CrewAI tool support out of the box — no glue code

Sample output

Each dataset item is flat, typed JSON with a sourceUrl and scrapedAt for citation/grounding:

{
  "query": "anthropic",
  "source": "hackernews",
  "title": "Anthropic acquires Bun",
  "points": 2192,
  "comments": 1073,
  "author": "ryanvogel",
  "url": "https://bun.com/blog/bun-joins-anthropic",
  "sourceUrl": "https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search?query=anthropic",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-06-11T09:00:00.000Z"
}

Input

{"queries":["anthropic"]}

Field	Type	Description
queries / query	array / string	Keyword, brand, or topic. One or many.
maxResults	integer	Hard spend cap (billed per result).
keywords / postedAfter	filters	Narrow results; enable delta/scheduled runs.

How much does it cost

Pay-per-result: $0.002 per successful result. No subscription, no compute-unit guesswork, no charge for empty results. An orchestrator can cap spend with maxResults.

How to use it with AI agents (MCP), Claude, and the API

Claude Desktop / Claude Code via Apify MCP

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "apify": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@apify/actors-mcp-server", "--actors", "oblanceolate_mandola/hacker-news-monitor"],
      "env": { "APIFY_TOKEN": "<YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN>" }
    }
  }
}

Python (Apify API)

from apify_client import ApifyClient
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN>")
run = client.actor("oblanceolate_mandola/hacker-news-monitor").call(run_input={"queries":["anthropic"]})
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item)

TypeScript (Apify API)

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';
const client = new ApifyClient({ token: '<YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN>' });
const run = await client.actor('oblanceolate_mandola/hacker-news-monitor').call({"queries":["anthropic"]});
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(items);

LangChain / CrewAI tool

from langchain_apify import ApifyActorsTool
tool = ApifyActorsTool("oblanceolate_mandola/hacker-news-monitor")  # agent calls it autonomously

OpenAPI schema for self-integrating GPT agents is auto-exposed at the Actor's API tab.

Data & compliance

Reads only publicly accessible endpoints. No login, no credential harvesting, no CAPTCHA bypass. Every result carries its sourceUrl so downstream agents can cite and re-verify.

FAQ

Does it cover comments too?

v1 searches stories. Each result includes the comment count and links to the HN discussion via the object ID.

How do I monitor a brand over time?

Set postedAfter and run on a schedule to get only new mentions since the last run.

What is the data source?

The official Hacker News Search API (Algolia), which indexes all HN stories and comments.

Can AI agents call this Actor directly?

Yes — via the Apify MCP server (snippet above), the OpenAPI schema on the Actor's API tab, or the LangChain/CrewAI tool wrapper. Results are flat JSON with sourceUrl and scrapedAt on every item, so downstream agents can cite and re-verify.

What happens when there are no results?

You pay nothing. Billing is per dataset item delivered, so an empty lookup costs $0, and the run log states why (no match, source rate limit) instead of failing silently.

Changelog

• 1.0 — Initial release: hackernews.