# Hacker News Scraper — search, front page, comments & users (`vincentkirui/hacker-news-scraper`) Actor

Turn Hacker News into structured data: full-text search all of HN history, pull the live top/new/best/ask/show/job front pages, fetch a story with its full comment thread, or get user profiles. No login — uses HN's public Algolia + Firebase APIs.

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

## Pricing

from $1.50 / 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?

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 Scraper — search, front page, comments & users

Turn **Hacker News** into clean, structured, agent-ready data — no login, no API keys.
Built on HN's official public APIs (Algolia HN Search + the Firebase v0 API), so it's fast,
reliable, and legal for public data. Four modes in one actor:

| Mode | What you get | Use it for |
|---|---|---|
| **Search** | Full-text search across *all* of HN history — filter by points, recency, tags | Brand / competitor / keyword monitoring, sentiment, market research |
| **Front page list** | The live **top / new / best / ask / show / job** stories | Trend tracking, daily digests, "what's hot in tech right now" |
| **Item + comments** | A story plus its **entire comment thread**, flattened | Deep discussion analysis, community sentiment, dataset building |
| **Users** | A user's profile, karma, and activity | Influencer / contributor research |

### Why it's built for AI agents

Exposed as an MCP tool, this lets an agent answer "**what is Hacker News saying about X?**"
in one call — search a topic, pull the discussion, read the comment thread. Structured JSON
out, no scraping fragility.

### Output

Clean, flat rows (CSV/Excel/JSON/API). Stories include `title`, `url`, `points`,
`num_comments`, `author`, `created_at`, `text`, and a direct `hn_url`. Comments include
`text`, `author`, `story_id`, `parent_id`. Users include `karma`, `about`, `created_at`.

### Input examples

```json
{ "mode": "search", "query": "your product", "minPoints": 50, "sinceDays": 30, "maxItems": 500 }
```

```json
{ "mode": "list", "listType": "top", "maxItems": 100 }
```

```json
{ "mode": "item", "itemIds": ["44444444"], "includeComments": true }
```

```json
{ "mode": "user", "usernames": ["pg", "dang"] }
```

### Legal

Uses Hacker News's public, documented APIs (Algolia + Firebase). No login, no cookies, no
circumvention. You're responsible for using the data within applicable law.

### Pricing

Pay-per-event: a small actor-start fee plus a per-item charge for each story / comment /
user returned — you pay for exactly the data you pull.

# Actor input Schema

## `mode` (type: `string`):

search = full-text search all of HN; list = live front page; item = a story + its comments; user = user profiles

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

Keyword, phrase, brand or competitor to search across Hacker News.

## `tags` (type: `string`):

Restrict search: story, comment, ask\_hn, show\_hn, poll, or front\_page.

## `sort` (type: `string`):

Order search results by relevance (points-weighted) or date (newest first).

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

Only return stories with at least this many points.

## `sinceDays` (type: `integer`):

Only return items created in the last N days.

## `listType` (type: `string`):

Which live list to pull.

## `itemIds` (type: `array`):

HN story/item IDs to fetch with their comment threads.

## `includeComments` (type: `boolean`):

Also return the full comment thread for each item.

## `usernames` (type: `array`):

HN usernames to fetch profiles for.

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

Stop after this many results (across all inputs).

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "mode": "search",
  "query": "anthropic",
  "tags": "story",
  "sort": "relevance",
  "listType": "top",
  "itemIds": [
    "44444444"
  ],
  "includeComments": true,
  "usernames": [
    "pg"
  ],
  "maxItems": 100
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

Scraped Hacker News stories, comments and users in the default dataset.

# 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("vincentkirui/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 = {}

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

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,vincentkirui/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/51a5v1KnngCKEhGAS/builds/dY4eRVyeyJhjHpzXJ/openapi.json