# Hacker News Scraper (`ef12/hacker-news-scraper`) Actor

Scrape Hacker News stories (top, ask, show, best, new) with points, authors, comment counts, and URLs.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/ef12/hacker-news-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [Daniel Wilson](https://apify.com/ef12) (community)
- **Categories:** Developer tools
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

$5.00 / 1,000 per 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/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

Scrape stories from Hacker News — **Top**, **Ask HN**, **Show HN**, **Best**, and **New** — with points, authors, comment counts, and direct links. Built with [BeautifulSoupCrawler](https://crawlee.dev/python) for fast static page parsing.

### What does Hacker News Scraper do?

This Actor extracts story data from [Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/) listing pages. Each result includes the story title, external URL (or HN discussion link for self-posts), upvote count, author, comment count, direct HN permalink, and relative timestamp. It covers all five main HN sections in a single lightweight crawl — no JavaScript rendering needed.

Since it runs on the **Apify platform**, you get API access, scheduling, proxy rotation, monitoring, and integrations with Zapier, Make, Google Drive, and more out of the box.

### Why use Hacker News Scraper?

- **Track trending topics** — monitor the front page or specific sections over time
- **Build datasets** — collect historical HN data for analysis, research, or ML
- **Feed dashboards** — pipe story data into your own tools or notifications
- **Content discovery** — find what's popular in Ask HN, Show HN, or Best sections
- **Pay only for what you use** — first 10 results per run are free

### Use Cases

#### How to track top tech news for a daily digest

Schedule a daily run with `section: "top"` and `max_results: 30` to capture the Hacker News front page each morning. Export to JSON or CSV and feed into your newsletter pipeline, Slack channel, or dashboard.

#### How to discover new developer projects on Show HN

Run with `section: "show"` to get the latest Show HN submissions. These are new projects, tools, and startups shared by the HN community. Filter by keywords in the title to find projects in your area of interest.

#### How to find technical discussions on Ask HN

Use `section: "ask"` to scrape Ask HN threads where developers ask questions about career advice, technical challenges, and industry trends. The comment count field helps identify the most active discussions.

#### How to monitor Hacker News for brand mentions

Run daily with `section: "top"` and filter results by your company name in the title field. The `points` and `comments` fields indicate how much attention the mention is getting.

### How to use Hacker News Scraper

1. Go to the [Hacker News Scraper](https://console.apify.com/actors) page in Apify Console.
2. Click **Try** or **Start** to open the input form.
3. Choose a **Section** (Top, Ask HN, Show HN, Best, or New) and set **Maximum Results** (up to 100).
4. Click **Run** and wait for the results.
5. Download the dataset in **JSON, HTML, CSV, Excel**, or access it via the API.

You can also run it locally with `apify run --input-file=test-input.json`.

### Input

| Field | Type | Default | Description |
|-------|------|---------|-------------|
| `section` | string | `top` | HN section: `top`, `ask`, `show`, `best`, or `new` |
| `max_results` | integer | `30` | Max stories to scrape (1–100, first 10 free) |

#### Example input

```json
{
    "section": "show",
    "max_results": 25
}
```

### Output

Each dataset item is a single HN story:

```json
[
    {
        "title": "Show HN: Runloom – Go-style coroutines for Python free-threaded",
        "url": "https://github.com/robertsdotpm/runloom",
        "points": 21,
        "author": "Uptrenda",
        "comments": 9,
        "hn_url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48861478",
        "created_at": "2 hours ago"
    }
]
```

### Data fields

| Field | Type | Description |
| ------- | ------ | ------------- |
| `title` | string | Story title |
| `url` | string | External story URL (or HN discussion link for self-posts) |
| `points` | integer | Upvote count |
| `author` | string | Submitter username |
| `comments` | integer | Number of comments |
| `hn_url` | string | Direct link to the HN discussion page |
| `created_at` | string | Relative time (e.g. "2 hours ago") |

n**Cost example:** 30 stories = 20 paid × $0.02 = **$0.40 per run**. First 10 results are free.

### Pricing

First **10 results per run are free**. Beyond that, each additional result costs **$0.02**.

For a typical run of 30 stories:

- 10 free → $0.00
- 20 charged → $0.40

Hacker News has no rate limiting for static page requests, and the BeautifulSoupCrawler is lightweight, so runs complete in seconds.

### Tips

- Use `max_results: 100` for a full page of results in a single request.
- The scraper makes exactly one HTTP request per run — it parses the listing page in memory.
- Set `section: "new"` to track the newest submissions as they appear.
- Self-posts (Ask HN, Show HN) where the story has no external URL link back to the HN discussion page instead.

### FAQ and disclaimers

**Is this legal?** Hacker News explicitly allows automated access. This scraper respects the site's structure and makes a single request per run — well within acceptable use.

**Are there any limits?** The Actor limits results to 100 per run. For larger datasets, schedule recurring runs and aggregate results.

**Need help or custom features?** Open an issue on the [Issues](https://console.apify.com/actors) tab or reach out for custom Actor development.

# Actor input Schema

## `section` (type: `string`):

Hacker News section to scrape

## `max_results` (type: `integer`):

Maximum number of stories to scrape (first 10 results are free)

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "section": "top",
  "max_results": 30
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `dataset` (type: `string`):

No description

# 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("ef12/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("ef12/hacker-news-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 ef12/hacker-news-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": [
                "mcp-remote",
                "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=ef12/hacker-news-scraper",
                "--header",
                "Authorization: Bearer <YOUR_API_TOKEN>"
            ]
        }
    }
}

```

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/YZhYZoRvdgaiJTcU3/builds/0dcil6HTH0MH9hKrv/openapi.json