# Hacker News Scraper - Stories, Comments & Search (`legend006/hackernews-scraper`) Actor

Scrape Hacker News stories, comments, polls, jobs, and Ask/Show HN posts. Search by keyword and date range, pull a user's full activity, or fetch any HN list (front page, new, best, ask, show, job). No auth required. Built for AI/ML datasets, tech trend research, and news monitoring.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/legend006/hackernews-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [NIJ KANANI](https://apify.com/legend006) (community)
- **Categories:** News, AI
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $0.30 / 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

Scrape **Hacker News** stories, comments, polls, jobs, and Ask/Show HN posts. Search by keyword + date range, pull full HN lists (front page, new, best, ask, show, jobs), or fetch any user's complete activity.

> ⚡ Uses HN's official Algolia + Firebase APIs. No login, no rate-limit nightmares, no scraping HTML.

***

### ✨ What you can do

- 🔎 **Keyword search** with date range, tag filter, min-points threshold, and sort by relevance/date/points
- 📋 **Pull any HN list** — top, new, best, Ask HN, Show HN, jobs
- 👤 **Get any user's full activity** — stories AND comments, by username
- 💬 **Optionally fetch full comment trees** — flattened with parent IDs (great for AI training)

***

### 🚀 Quick start

1. Click **Try for free**
2. Pick mode: `search`, `list`, or `user`
3. Enter targets
4. Click **Start**

***

### 📥 Input examples

#### Search for "claude" stories from the last month with 50+ points

```json
{
    "mode": "search",
    "searchQueries": ["claude"],
    "tags": "story",
    "sortBy": "points",
    "since": "2026-04-01",
    "minPoints": 50,
    "maxItems": 500,
    "includeComments": true
}
```

#### Pull current front page

```json
{
    "mode": "list",
    "listType": "topstories",
    "maxItems": 30,
    "includeComments": true,
    "maxCommentsPerStory": 50
}
```

#### Get pg's recent activity

```json
{
    "mode": "user",
    "users": ["pg", "dang"],
    "maxItems": 100
}
```

***

### 📤 Output (per item)

```json
{
    "type": "story",
    "id": 12345678,
    "title": "Show HN: A new way to scrape data",
    "text": null,
    "author": "username",
    "points": 234,
    "numComments": 87,
    "createdAt": "2026-04-15T12:34:56.000Z",
    "url": "https://example.com/article",
    "hnUrl": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12345678",
    "tags": ["story", "front_page"],
    "comments": [
        {
            "type": "comment",
            "id": 12345679,
            "text": "Great post!",
            "author": "commenter",
            "points": 12,
            "createdAt": "2026-04-15T13:00:00.000Z",
            "parentId": 12345678
        }
    ]
}
```

***

### 🎯 Use cases

| Who | Why |
|---|---|
| 🤖 AI / LLM teams | High-signal tech-discussion training data, filterable by topic and quality (points threshold) |
| 📰 Tech journalists | Track what's trending in dev/startup community |
| 🧑‍💻 Engineers | Dataset of "Show HN" launches, open-source releases, new tools |
| 📊 VCs / scouts | Monitor early-stage signals across founders posting on HN |
| 📈 SEO researchers | Track tech keywords surfacing in HN search trends |

***

### ⚙️ Tech notes

- Search uses HN's [Algolia API](https://hn.algolia.com/api) — fast, fielded, supports complex queries
- Lists & item details use HN's [Firebase API](https://github.com/HackerNews/API) — official, real-time
- No auth required, no API key needed, no rate-limit (within reason)
- Comments are fetched recursively from Firebase for accuracy and full trees

***

### ❓ FAQ

**Will I get rate-limited?**
HN is generous — the Algolia API is unmetered for reasonable use. Comment-tree scraping at large scale is slower because each item is a separate Firebase call.

**Are deleted/dead items included?**
No — they're filtered automatically.

**Can I scrape historical data?**
Yes. Use `since` and `until` in search mode to pull any historical date range. HN's archive goes back to 2007.

**Schedule it?**
Yes — set up an Apify Schedule for daily/hourly trend tracking.

# Actor input Schema

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

Pick what to scrape. 'search' = keyword search via Algolia. 'list' = front page, new, best, ask, show, or job. 'user' = a user's stories and comments.

## `searchQueries` (type: `array`):

Keywords or phrases. Used when mode = search.

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

Algolia tags filter. Examples: 'story', 'comment', 'poll', 'show\_hn', 'ask\_hn', 'front\_page'. Combine with commas (AND) or use parentheses for OR. Default 'story' returns stories only.

## `sortBy` (type: `string`):

Sort search results.

## `since` (type: `string`):

Lower bound for created\_at. Format YYYY-MM-DD. Search mode only.

## `until` (type: `string`):

Upper bound for created\_at. Format YYYY-MM-DD. Search mode only.

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

Skip stories below this score. Useful to filter quality. Search mode only.

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

Used when mode = list.

## `users` (type: `array`):

Used when mode = user. Plain usernames (no '@' or 'u/').

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

Maximum items to return per query / list / user.

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

Fetch full comment trees for each story (slower, much richer data — great for AI training).

## `maxCommentsPerStory` (type: `integer`):

Cap on comments per story when includeComments is on.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "mode": "search",
  "searchQueries": [
    "claude"
  ],
  "tags": "story",
  "sortBy": "relevance",
  "minPoints": 0,
  "listType": "topstories",
  "users": [],
  "maxItems": 200,
  "includeComments": false,
  "maxCommentsPerStory": 100
}
```

# 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("legend006/hackernews-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("legend006/hackernews-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 legend006/hackernews-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,legend006/hackernews-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/t2Nb0IjTK3mVL2kel/builds/zjrEnfS5QJeNe67rB/openapi.json