# Hacker News Scraper (`centspy/hackernews-scraper`) Actor

Search and scrape Hacker News stories, comments, Show HN and Ask HN via the public API. No proxy, no browser.

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

## Pricing

$1.00 / 1,000 item scrapeds

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/platform/actors/running/actors-in-store#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 and extract **Hacker News** content at scale — stories, comments, Show HN, Ask HN, and polls. Filter by keyword, points, and comment count. Perfect for tech trend monitoring, competitor and brand tracking, lead generation, and content research.

This scraper reads the **public Algolia search API** that powers Hacker News search (`hn.algolia.com/api/v1`). That means:

- **No proxies needed** — the API is happy to serve datacenter requests, so runs are cheap and reliable.
- **No browser** — fast and lightweight.
- **No auth, no broken selectors** — it reads a stable, documented JSON API.

### What it does

Give it a search query (or just a tag like `front_page`) and it returns matching HN items as clean, structured rows — with points, comment counts, authors, timestamps, and direct links to both the external URL and the HN thread.

### Input

| Field | Type | Description |
|-------|------|-------------|
| `query` | string | Keyword(s) to search. Leave blank to fetch latest/front-page items by tag. |
| `tags` | string | Item type: `story`, `comment`, `poll`, `show_hn`, `ask_hn`, or `front_page`. Default `story`. |
| `sortByDate` | boolean | On = newest first. Off = relevance/popularity. Default `false`. |
| `minPoints` | integer | Only items with at least this many points. `0` = no minimum. |
| `minComments` | integer | Only items with at least this many comments. `0` = no minimum. |
| `maxResults` | integer | Max items to return. `0` = as many as the API returns. Default `100`. |

#### Example input

```json
{
    "query": "open source AI",
    "tags": "story",
    "sortByDate": false,
    "minPoints": 50,
    "maxResults": 200
}
```

### Output

```json
{
    "id": "39842011",
    "type": "story",
    "title": "Show HN: I built an open-source AI tool",
    "url": "https://example.com/my-tool",
    "hnUrl": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39842011",
    "author": "janedoe",
    "points": 412,
    "numComments": 137,
    "createdAt": "2026-04-02T14:21:00.000Z",
    "text": null,
    "storyTitle": null
}
```

Export to **CSV, JSON, Excel, or HTML**, or pull via the Apify API.

### Pricing

This Actor uses **pay-per-event** pricing — a small charge per item scraped, platform usage included. A run returning 1,000 items costs roughly the per-item price × 1,000.

### Use cases

- **Brand & competitor monitoring** — track every HN mention of a product or company.
- **Lead generation** — find people discussing a problem your product solves.
- **Trend research** — surface the top stories on a topic by points over time.
- **Show HN tracking** — monitor new product launches in your space.

### Notes & limitations

- Relevance search returns up to roughly 1,000 results per query. To go deeper, narrow with `query`, `minPoints`, or run separate date-windowed searches with `sortByDate` on.
- Timestamps are in UTC.

# Actor input Schema

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

Keyword(s) to search for. Leave blank to fetch the latest/front-page items by tag.

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

What to fetch: story, comment, poll, show\_hn, ask\_hn, or front\_page.

## `sortByDate` (type: `boolean`):

On = newest first. Off = sort by relevance/popularity.

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

Only include items with at least this many points. 0 = no minimum.

## `minComments` (type: `integer`):

Only include items with at least this many comments. 0 = no minimum.

## `maxResults` (type: `integer`):

Maximum number of items to return. 0 = as many as the API will return.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "query": "claude anthropic",
  "tags": "story",
  "sortByDate": false,
  "minPoints": 0,
  "minComments": 0,
  "maxResults": 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("centspy/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("centspy/hackernews-scraper").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print("💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/" + run["defaultDatasetId"])
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).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 centspy/hackernews-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": [
                "mcp-remote",
                "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=centspy/hackernews-scraper",
                "--header",
                "Authorization: Bearer <YOUR_API_TOKEN>"
            ]
        }
    }
}

```

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/htotgB0AxPaL0TSaF/builds/2rKN7XCfxas591L6X/openapi.json