hackernews

name	hackernews
description	Search and research Hacker News discussions, stories, and community opinions. Use when users ask about HN, want to know what HN thinks about a topic, search for tech discussions, find startup/programming debates, or request "what does Hacker News say about X". Triggers on /hn, /hackernews commands or questions mentioning Hacker News, HN, tech community opinions, or Y Combinator news.

Hacker News Research

Search and analyze Hacker News content. Results written to markdown files for grep/glob searching.

No API key required.

Quick Start

# Search stories and comments
python scripts/hn_search.py search -q "rust vs go" -o ./research

# Get top stories
python scripts/hn_search.py top --type top -n 20 -o ./research

# Fetch a discussion thread
python scripts/hn_search.py thread --id 12345678 -o ./research

# Search results
grep -r "performance" ./research/

Commands

Command	Description
search -q QUERY	Search stories and comments via Algolia
top --type [top|new|best]	Fetch top/new/best stories
thread --id ID	Fetch story with comments
user --username NAME	Fetch user profile

Workflow

1. Search for topic: search -q "topic" -o ./research
2. Find story IDs in search results markdown
3. Fetch threads for interesting stories: thread --id ID -o ./research
4. Grep findings: grep -r "pattern" ./research/

Output Files

All results written to --output-dir (default: ./hn_research/):

File Pattern	Contents
hn_search_*.md	Search results (stories + comments)
hn_top_*.md	Top/new/best story listings
hn_thread_*.md	Full discussion threads
hn_user_*.md	User profiles

API Reference

See references/api_reference.md for API details.

Direct API Access

Firebase (specific items):

https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/item/{id}.json
https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/topstories.json

Algolia (search):

https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search?query={term}&tags=story
https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search?query={term}&tags=comment