# Lobsters Scraper - Tech News & Discussions (`lulzasaur/lobsters-scraper`) Actor

Scrape Lobste.rs tech news stories. Get titles, scores, tags, comments, and authors from the front page, newest, or search results.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/lulzasaur/lobsters-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [lulz bot](https://apify.com/lulzasaur) (community)
- **Categories:** E-commerce
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $10.00 / 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/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

## Lobsters Scraper

Extract tech news stories from Lobste.rs — the invite-only tech community. Get titles, URLs, scores, tags, comments, and author information.

### Features

- **Front page** — scrape the current front page stories
- **Newest** — get the latest submitted stories
- **Hottest** — scrape the hottest stories
- **By tag** — filter stories by tag (e.g., "python", "security", "devops")
- **Search** — search stories by keyword
- **Pagination** — scrape multiple pages for more results

### Input

| Field | Type | Description |
|-------|------|-------------|
| `mode` | string | "front", "newest", "hottest", "tag", or "search" (default: "front") |
| `searchQuery` | string | Search query (only for "search" mode) |
| `tag` | string | Tag name (only for "tag" mode, e.g. "python", "security") |
| `maxResults` | number | Max stories to return (default: 50) |
| `maxPages` | number | Max pages to scrape (default: 2) |

### Output

Each story includes:

```json
{
    "title": "Why Rust is great for CLI tools",
    "url": "https://example.com/article",
    "domain": "example.com",
    "score": 42,
    "commentCount": 15,
    "author": "username",
    "tags": ["rust", "programming"],
    "submittedAt": "2026-04-26T10:00:00Z",
    "commentUrl": "https://lobste.rs/s/abc123",
    "shortId": "abc123",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-04-26T12:00:00Z"
}
```

### Use Cases

- **Tech trend monitoring** — track what the developer community is discussing
- **Content curation** — find top-rated technical articles and discussions
- **Competitive intelligence** — monitor mentions of technologies and products
- **Research** — analyze developer community sentiment on tech topics
- **Newsletter content** — curate high-quality technical articles

### Pricing

This actor uses pay-per-event pricing at **$0.005 per result scraped**.

# Actor input Schema

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

Which page to scrape.

## `searchQuery` (type: `string`):

Search query (only used in 'search' mode).

## `tag` (type: `string`):

Tag name (only used in 'tag' mode, e.g. 'python', 'security', 'devops').

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

Maximum number of stories to return.

## `maxPages` (type: `integer`):

Maximum number of pages to scrape (each page has ~25 stories).

## `proxyConfiguration` (type: `object`):

Optional proxy to use.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "mode": "front",
  "searchQuery": "",
  "tag": "",
  "maxResults": 50,
  "maxPages": 2
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (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("lulzasaur/lobsters-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("lulzasaur/lobsters-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 lulzasaur/lobsters-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

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

```

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/IaBIxEXHr9ck79Owc/builds/hCy44vuVCEl8HUCVp/openapi.json