# MSN News Comments Scraper (`romy/msn-news-comments-scraper`) Actor

Unofficial wrapper around MSN's own public content API. Fetches real reader comments on MSN articles as structured JSON.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/romy/msn-news-comments-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [Romy](https://apify.com/romy) (community)
- **Categories:** News
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $0.23 / 1,000 comment returneds

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.
Since this Actor supports Apify Store discounts, the price gets lower the higher subscription plan you have.

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

## MSN News Comments Scraper

Unofficial, reverse-engineered wrapper around MSN's own public content API. Scrapes paginated real reader comments for one or more MSN news articles — one dataset row per comment.

### What

Given one or more MSN article ids, resolves each one's comment thread and pushes every comment (full text, author, score, timestamp) to the dataset, paginated automatically.

### Why

MSN article pages carry real reader discussion, not just view counts. This pulls the full comment text without building your own scraper against MSN's web frontend.

### Input

| Field | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| `market` | string (select) | Yes | MSN locale/market code the article ids were found under, e.g. `en-us`. |
| `ids` | array of strings | Yes | One or more article ids to fetch comments for (from `msn-news-search-scraper`'s `items[].id`). |
| `maxCommentsPerArticle` | integer | No | Stop once this many comments have been pushed for a given article. Omit to fetch all. |

### Output

One dataset row per comment:

```json
{
    "articleId": "AA2edOWm",
    "commentId": "0881b37f-991e-4f99-abf1-619275516c4c",
    "parentId": null,
    "body": "The media is invested in the perception that...",
    "score": 7902,
    "createdTime": "2026-10-14T16:28:18Z",
    "authorId": "cid-c4eisdndptpc7vr3p79b63q6bd5v8xngnb889j8vr9njf6xf25fa",
    "authorName": "Purple voter",
    "market": "en-us"
}
```

### Pricing

Pay-per-event: `comment` — one charge per comment pushed.

### Known limitations

- An article id with no comment thread yet (too new, or comments disabled) is skipped with a warning in the run log, not a hard failure for the whole run.
- Reply threading is preserved via `parentId`, but this Actor does not reconstruct a nested tree — that's left to the caller.
- This is an unofficial, reverse-engineered integration, not affiliated with or endorsed by Microsoft Corporation. Behavior may change if MSN changes its API.

Found a bug or have a feature request? Use the Issues tab on this Actor's page.

# Actor input Schema

## `market` (type: `string`):

MSN locale/market code the article ids were found under.

## `ids` (type: `array`):

One or more MSN article ids to fetch comments for (from msn-news-search-scraper's items\[].id).

## `maxCommentsPerArticle` (type: `integer`):

Stop once this many comments have been pushed for a given article. Leave empty to fetch all comments.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "market": "en-us",
  "ids": [
    "AA2edOWm"
  ]
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `dataset` (type: `string`):

No description

# 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 = {
    "market": "en-us",
    "ids": [
        "AA2edOWm"
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("romy/msn-news-comments-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 = {
    "market": "en-us",
    "ids": ["AA2edOWm"],
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("romy/msn-news-comments-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 '{
  "market": "en-us",
  "ids": [
    "AA2edOWm"
  ]
}' |
apify call romy/msn-news-comments-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,romy/msn-news-comments-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/QBI1sFqycgfJUkmzL/builds/7iRb1FgywOohYIuwF/openapi.json