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

- **URL**: https://apify.com/sweet\_rebel/hacker-news-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [Rajat Sharda](https://apify.com/sweet_rebel) (community)
- **Categories:** News
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

$3.00 / 1,000 article 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

A robust, ultra-fast, and reliable scraper designed to retrieve top stories, tech articles, scores, authors, and link destinations from Hacker News (news.ycombinator.com). Excellent for tech market research, news aggregators, and automated AI newsletters.

### Features

- **Top Stories Fetching**: Extracts the top-ranked articles directly from HN's active front page.
- **Full Story Metadata**: Captures titles, authors, scores, creation timestamps, discussion comment counts, and direct external destinations.
- **Fast & Lightweight**: Leverages clean, official API structures for lightning-fast scraping times and 100% uptime.
- **Pay-Per-Event (PPE) Pricing**: Charged strictly per article scraped, offering perfect scale-to-zero pricing.

### Input Parameters

The Actor accepts the following input in JSON format:

| Field | Type | Required | Default | Description |
| :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- |
| `max_items` | Integer | No | `10` | The maximum number of HN articles to scrape in a single run. |

#### Example Input

```json
{
  "max_items": 5
}
```

### Output Schema

The scraped data is pushed directly to your default Apify dataset in JSON format with the following fields:

| Field | Type | Description |
| :--- | :--- | :--- |
| `id` | Integer | The unique ID of the story item on Hacker News. |
| `title` | String | The headline/title of the article. |
| `by` | String | The Hacker News username of the submitter. |
| `score` | Integer | The current upvote score of the article. |
| `time` | Integer | Unix epoch timestamp of when the article was submitted. |
| `url` | String | Direct URL link of the story (or discussions page if text-only). |
| `descendants` | Integer | Total number of comments currently under the story. |
| `type` | String | Type of item (e.g. `story`). |

#### Example Output

```json
{
  "id": 48920192,
  "title": "Why I still use Vim in 2026",
  "by": "techguy23",
  "score": 452,
  "time": 1783185000,
  "url": "https://example.com/vim-2026",
  "descendants": 142,
  "type": "story"
}
```

### Pricing Configuration

This Actor utilizes Apify's **Pay-Per-Event (PPE)** monetization model.

- **Primary Event**: `article-scraped`
- **Cost**: **$0.003** per successfully scraped Hacker News article.
- You only pay for what is successfully extracted and delivered to your dataset!

## Actor input object example

```json
{}
```

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

```

## MCP server setup

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

```

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/zfkT7sqKkTAfOMSeB/builds/EGstl0ZRSGEB1lXWp/openapi.json