# Hacker News Scraper — Stories & Comments Search (`omao/hackernews`) Actor

Search Hacker News stories, comments, Show HN and Ask HN by keyword into clean JSON: title, URL, author, points, comment count and dates. Powered by the official HN Algolia API. No anti-bot.

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

## Pricing

from $0.72 / 1,000 hits

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.
Since this Actor supports Apify Store discounts, the price gets lower the higher subscription plan you have.

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 — Stories & Comments Search

**Search Hacker News and get clean JSON.** Query stories, comments, Show HN, Ask HN or the front page by keyword and get back a tidy row per hit: title, URL, author, points, comment count and dates. Powered by the official HN Algolia API — no anti-bot, no key.

> AI-agent ready: this Actor is callable and payable by AI agents via [x402](https://docs.apify.com/platform/integrations/x402) (USDC on Base), no Apify account required.

Turn Hacker News into a structured dataset for research, monitoring, sentiment analysis and trend-tracking.

### Who uses this

- 📈 **Founders & marketers** — monitor mentions of your product, competitors or topics.
- 🔎 **Researchers & analysts** — build datasets of tech discussions and sentiment.
- 🤖 **AI / LLM pipelines** — feed HN stories and comments to your models.
- 📰 **Trend watchers** — track what's rising on the front page and in Show/Ask HN.
- 🧑‍💻 **Developers** — a clean HN search endpoint without touching the raw API.

### What you get — one clean row per hit

| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| `title` | Story / item title |
| `url` | Linked article URL |
| `author` | HN username |
| `points` | Score |
| `numComments` | Comment count |
| `createdAt` | Post date |
| `storyText` / `commentText` | Text body (Ask HN, comments) |
| `tags` | HN item tags |
| `hnUrl` | Link to the HN discussion |
| `id`, `query`, `scrapedAt` | Identifiers & provenance |

### Example

**Input**

```json
{ "queries": ["ai agents", "rust"], "tag": "story", "minPoints": 50, "sortByDate": false, "maxResultsPerQuery": 100 }
```

**Output (one item)**

```json
{
  "id": "38765432",
  "title": "Show HN: I built an open-source AI agent framework",
  "url": "https://github.com/example/agent",
  "author": "pg",
  "points": 412, "numComments": 137,
  "createdAt": "2026-07-13T14:05:00Z",
  "hnUrl": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38765432"
}
```

### Why this scraper

- ✅ **Official source** — the Hacker News Algolia API, always current.
- 🔎 **Search everything** — stories, comments, Show HN, Ask HN, polls, front page.
- 🎯 **Filter that matters** — by minimum points, and sort by date or relevance.
- ⚡ **Fast & affordable** — pay only per hit returned. No anti-bot, no key.
- 🧹 **Clean output** — normalized JSON, ready for Sheets/Excel/your database.

### Input options

- `queries` *(required)* — keywords (one search per query).
- `tag` — `story`, `comment`, `poll`, `show_hn`, `ask_hn` or `front_page`.
- `sortByDate` — newest first (`true`) vs by relevance (`false`).
- `minPoints` — only items with at least this many points.
- `maxResultsPerQuery` — cap hits per query (default 100).

### FAQ

**Stories or comments?** Both — set `tag` to `story`, `comment`, `show_hn`, `ask_hn`, `poll` or `front_page`.

**Can I filter by popularity?** Yes — set `minPoints` to only get items above a score.

**Newest or most relevant?** Your choice — toggle `sortByDate`.

**How fresh is the data?** Live from the HN Algolia API on every run.

**Can I export to CSV/Excel/Google Sheets?** Yes — the dataset exports to JSON, CSV, Excel and HTML, or pull it via the API.

**What does it cost?** Pay-per-hit — you're only charged for items actually returned.

***

*Tip: schedule a keyword search daily to monitor when your product or topic hits the HN front page.*

# Actor input Schema

## `queries` (type: `array`):

Keywords to search on Hacker News (one search per query).

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

What to search for.

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

Newest first (true) instead of by relevance (false).

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

Only return items with at least this many points.

## `maxResultsPerQuery` (type: `integer`):

Cap the number of hits returned per query.

## `healthCheckMode` (type: `boolean`):

Internal monitoring: run a canary search and FAIL if broken (no billing).

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "queries": [
    "rust",
    "ai agents"
  ],
  "tag": "story",
  "sortByDate": false,
  "maxResultsPerQuery": 100,
  "healthCheckMode": false
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `hits` (type: `string`):

All Hacker News items (title, author, points, comments, URLs).

# 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 = {
    "queries": [
        "python"
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("omao/hackernews").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 = { "queries": ["python"] }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("omao/hackernews").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 '{
  "queries": [
    "python"
  ]
}' |
apify call omao/hackernews --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

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

```

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/wirS5cTMRALzZA39T/builds/17VTwN2KojpH5VttG/openapi.json