# Ycombinitor (`scraper_guru/ycombinitor`) Actor

Collect every article's title, score, author, age, and URL from the Hacker News front page in seconds, no browser required.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/scraper\_guru/ycombinitor.md
- **Developed by:** [LIAICHI MUSTAPHA](https://apify.com/scraper_guru) (community)
- **Categories:** Developer tools, Lead generation
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

Pay per usage

This Actor is paid per platform usage. The Actor is free to use, and you only pay for the Apify platform usage, which gets cheaper the higher subscription plan you have.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-usage

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
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.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## 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.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

## Hacker News Front-Page Scraper

Collect every article's **title**, **score**, **author**, **age**, and **URL** from the [Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/) front page in seconds — no browser required.

### What does this Actor do?

This Actor fetches the Hacker News front page and extracts the top stories using a fast, lightweight HTTP crawler (Cheerio). For each story it captures:

| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| `rank` | Position on the front page (1-based) |
| `id` | HN item ID |
| `title` | Story headline |
| `url` | Link to the article |
| `domain` | Domain shown beneath the title |
| `score` | Number of upvote points |
| `author` | HN username of the submitter |
| `ageText` | Relative age string (e.g., "4 hours ago") |
| `ageTimestamp` | ISO 8601 timestamp of submission |
| `commentsCount` | Number of comments |
| `commentsUrl` | Direct link to the HN discussion |
| `scrapedAt` | ISO 8601 timestamp of when the record was scraped |

### Input

```json
{
    "maxItems": 30
}
```

| Parameter | Type | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| `maxItems` | integer | `30` | Maximum stories to collect (1–30). HN shows ≤30 stories per page. |

### Output example

```json
[
    {
        "rank": 1,
        "id": "49170165",
        "title": "Show HN: Simple algorithm and color space to generate diverse skin tones",
        "url": "https://toneyalexander.github.io/inclusive-color-space/",
        "domain": "toneyalexander.github.io",
        "score": 288,
        "author": "automatoney",
        "ageText": "4 hours ago",
        "ageTimestamp": "2026-08-04T15:16:22",
        "commentsCount": 67,
        "commentsUrl": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49170165",
        "scrapedAt": "2026-08-04T19:00:00.000Z"
    }
]
```

### Limitations

- Scrapes only the **current** front page (≤30 stories). Paginated pages (`/news?p=2`) are not fetched.
- Job listings and special posts (e.g., "Hiring") often have no score, author, or comments count — those fields will be `null`.
- Score and comment counts change constantly; each run reflects a point-in-time snapshot.
- Hacker News does not provide an API for front-page items in this format, so the Actor scrapes HTML directly. Structural changes to HN's markup may require selector updates.

### Running locally

```bash
## Install dependencies
npm install

## Build TypeScript
npm run build

## Run the Actor (reads input from storage/key_value_stores/default/INPUT.json)
apify run

## Or purge previous storage first
apify run --purge
```

Results are saved to `storage/datasets/default/` as newline-delimited JSON.

# Actor input Schema

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

Maximum number of stories to collect from the front page (1–30). Defaults to 30.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "maxItems": 30
}
```

# Actor output Schema

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

Dataset containing all scraped HN front-page stories.

# 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 = {};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("scraper_guru/ycombinitor").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 = {}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("scraper_guru/ycombinitor").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 '{}' |
apify call scraper_guru/ycombinitor --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

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

```

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/6Thmq1UOBdxMQrfuq/builds/kNlmvYBQT6cA8ITeZ/openapi.json