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BytesAgain β€Ί Skills β€Ί Hacker News
πŸ¦€ ClawHub

Hacker News

by @ivangdavila

Search and browse Hacker News with API access to stories, comments, users, and hiring threads.

Versionv1.0.0
Downloads2,702
Stars⭐ 1
#security#legal#hr
TERMINAL
clawhub install hacker-news

πŸ“– About This Skill

name: Hacker News slug: hacker-news version: 1.0.0 description: Search and browse Hacker News with API access to stories, comments, users, and hiring threads. metadata: {"clawdbot":{"emoji":"🟠","requires":{"bins":[]},"os":["linux","darwin","win32"]}}

Quick Reference

| Topic | File | |-------|------| | API endpoints | api.md | | Search patterns | search.md |

Core Rules

1. Two APIs Available

| API | Use Case | Base URL | |-----|----------|----------| | Official HN API | Single items, real-time | https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0 | | Algolia Search | Full-text search, filters | https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1 |

2. Official API Endpoints

  • /topstories.json β€” top 500 story IDs
  • /newstories.json β€” newest 500 story IDs
  • /beststories.json β€” best stories
  • /askstories.json β€” Ask HN
  • /showstories.json β€” Show HN
  • /jobstories.json β€” job postings
  • /item/{id}.json β€” story/comment details
  • /user/{username}.json β€” user profile

    • 3. Algolia Search Syntax

    /search?query=TERM&tags=TAG&numericFilters=FILTER

    Tags (combinable with AND):

  • story, comment, poll, job, ask_hn, show_hn
  • author_USERNAME β€” posts by user
  • story_ID β€” comments on story

    • Numeric filters:

  • created_at_i>TIMESTAMP β€” after date
  • points>N β€” minimum points
  • num_comments>N β€” minimum comments

    • 4. Common Patterns

    | Request | Endpoint | |---------|----------| | Frontpage | Official /topstories.json β†’ fetch first 30 items | | Search posts | Algolia /search?query=X&tags=story | | User's posts | Algolia /search?tags=author_USERNAME | | Who is hiring? | Algolia /search?query=who is hiring&tags=story,author_whoishiring | | Comments on story | Algolia /search?tags=comment,story_ID | | This week's top | Algolia /search?tags=story&numericFilters=created_at_i>WEEK_TS |

    5. Response Handling

  • Official API returns IDs β†’ batch fetch items (parallelize)
  • Algolia returns full objects with hits[] array
  • Story object: id, title, url, score, by, time, descendants (comment count)
  • Comment object: id, text, by, parent, time

    • 6. Rate Limits

  • Official API: No auth required, generous limits
  • Algolia: 10,000 requests/hour (no key needed)
  • Always paginate large results (page=N, hitsPerPage=N)

    • 7. Gotchas

  • url is null for Ask HN/Show HN text posts β€” use text field instead
  • deleted and dead items exist β€” check before displaying
  • Timestamps are Unix seconds, not milliseconds
  • Algolia objectID = HN item id (as string)