# Hacker News Monitor — Brand & Keyword Mention Tracker (`vertaizen/tech-community-monitor`) Actor

Social listening & brand monitoring for Hacker News — tracks every mention of your brand, product, competitor or keyword in stories AND comments. Built on the open HN Algolia API: no scraping, no blocking. Monitor mode returns only NEW mentions for alerts. Pay per mention.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/vertaizen/tech-community-monitor.md
- **Developed by:** [Diego Moragues](https://apify.com/vertaizen) (community)
- **Categories:** AI, Automation, Social media
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $2.00 / 1,000 mentions

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 Monitor — Brand, Product & Keyword Mention Tracker

**Hacker News Monitor** is a fast, reliable **Hacker News tracking** and **social listening** tool. It tracks every time your **brand, product, competitor or keyword is mentioned on Hacker News** — stories *and* comments — so marketers, founders and product managers never miss a conversation. Built on the **official, open, unauthenticated Hacker News Algolia Search API**, there is **no scraping, no browser, no proxies and nothing to get blocked**. Turn on **monitor mode** and it becomes a real-time **Hacker News mention alerting** engine: each scheduled run returns only the mentions that appeared since the last run — perfect for **brand mention alerts**, competitor intelligence and lead generation.

If you care about **HN brand monitoring**, **Hacker News keyword tracking**, **developer-community social listening**, or turning Hacker News chatter into **buying signals**, this actor is for you.

### Why this Hacker News monitor is reliable (and review-site scrapers aren't)

Many "monitoring" actors scrape sites protected by WAFs and anti-bot systems, so they break constantly. This actor talks **only to the public, open Hacker News Algolia API** — the same API that powers HN's own search. It is officially exposed, unauthenticated, fast, and reliable from anywhere.

| | **This Hacker News Monitor (open API)** | Scrapers of WAF-protected sites |
|---|---|---|
| Data source | Official open [HN Algolia API](https://hn.algolia.com/api) | HTML behind anti-bot walls |
| Blocking / CAPTCHAs | ❌ None | ✅ Frequent |
| Searches comments too | ✅ Stories *and* comments | Often stories only |
| Monitor mode (only NEW mentions) | ✅ Built in | Rare |
| Proxies required | ❌ None | ✅ Usually |
| Breaks on layout change | ❌ Stable JSON API | ✅ Often |

**No CAPTCHAs, no IP blocks, no fragile HTML parsing** — which is exactly why this actor keeps working where scrapers of protected review sites do not.

### What you get for each mention

```json
{
  "keyword": "apify",
  "source": "hackernews",
  "itemType": "story",
  "itemId": "48733650",
  "title": "10x more tools on x402",
  "text": null,
  "author": "jancurn",
  "points": 128,
  "numComments": 42,
  "url": "https://blog.apify.com/introducing-x402-agentic-payments/",
  "createdAt": "2026-06-30T14:58:31Z",
  "isNew": true,
  "scrapedAt": "2026-07-02T09:00:00Z"
}
```

For **comments**, `itemType` is `"comment"`, `text` holds the comment body, `title` holds the parent story title, and `url` is the HN permalink to the comment (`https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=<id>`).

### How to use it

1. **Add keywords** — your brand, product, competitors, or any topic (e.g. `apify`, `your-startup`, `postgres`).
2. **Pick what to search** — stories (default on), comments (default off), or both.
3. **Set the time range** — e.g. last 7, 30 or 90 days.
4. **(Optional) Filter noise** — set `minPoints` to only surface stories above a signal threshold.
5. **(Optional) Enable monitor mode** — and schedule the actor (e.g. hourly or daily). Each run returns only NEW mentions per keyword. Wire a **webhook** to push new mentions straight to Slack, email, or your CRM.

### Use cases

Each of these is a real search buyers make:

- **"Monitor Hacker News for brand mentions"** — get notified the moment your product is discussed on HN, in stories or comments.
- **"Get a Slack alert for Hacker News mentions"** — monitor mode + schedule + webhook = new mentions land in Slack in near real time.
- **"Track a competitor's Show HN launch"** — watch for competitor Show HN posts and read the community reception as it unfolds.
- **"Find leads asking for a tool on Hacker News"** — catch "looking for", "recommend a", or "alternatives to" threads where prospects are actively seeking a tool like yours.
- **"Monitor Hacker News comments, not just stories"** — surface criticism or praise buried in comment threads, where the real discussion happens.
- **"Feed Hacker News mentions to an AI agent"** — flat input and clean JSON make this a drop-in tool for LLM pipelines via the Apify MCP server.

#### Show HN launch tracking

A favorite for founders and devtools marketers: track your niche's keywords in monitor mode and catch every **Show HN** launch the day it posts — your own, your competitors', and adjacent tools. You see the launch, the points trajectory, and the comment sentiment early enough to engage while the thread is still on the front page.

### Pricing

**Pay per mention** delivered — no subscription, no minimum. You only pay for the mentions actually pushed to your dataset. Keywords with zero results are never charged.

### FAQ

#### Which sources does it monitor?

Today it monitors **Hacker News** (stories and comments) via the open [HN Algolia Search API](https://hn.algolia.com/api) — the fast, reliable, unblocked core. The architecture is source-pluggable, so additional open communities can be added over time without changing how you use it.

#### Does it search Hacker News comments too?

Yes. Enable the comments option and the actor searches both stories and comments. For comments, the item carries the comment `text`, the parent story `title`, and a permalink directly to the comment on Hacker News.

#### How do I get Slack alerts for HN mentions?

Enable `monitorMode`, schedule the actor (e.g. hourly), and attach an Apify [webhook or integration](https://docs.apify.com/platform/integrations) (Slack, email, Zapier, Make) to the run. Each new mention is forwarded the moment it appears.

#### How does monitor mode work?

With `monitorMode` enabled, the actor keeps a per-keyword record of previously seen mention IDs in a persistent named key-value store (`TECH-MONITOR-STATE`). On each run it compares current mentions against that record and outputs only the new ones (`isNew: true`). The first run for a keyword is a **baseline** (it records what already exists and pushes nothing), so subsequent scheduled runs surface only genuine new activity.

#### What time range can I use?

Anywhere from **1 to 365 days** via `timeRangeDays`. Only mentions created within that window are returned.

#### How does deduplication work?

Every mention has a stable, immutable ID (the HN `objectID`). The actor dedupes within a run (the same item can appear across paginated pages or across the story and comment queries) and, in monitor mode, across runs — so you never see the same mention twice.

#### Is this legal?

Yes. The actor reads a **public, official, open API** (the Hacker News Algolia Search API) that requires no login and exposes no private data. It is the same API that powers Hacker News' own search. There is no scraping, no rate-limit abuse, and no personal data collection.

#### How reliable is it — does it get blocked?

It doesn't. Because it uses **official open APIs rather than scraping**, there are no CAPTCHAs, WAFs, IP blocks, or brittle HTML selectors to break. Requests are simple JSON `GET`s that succeed from anywhere, which is exactly why this actor works live where WAF-protected review-site scrapers do not.

#### Can AI agents use this actor?

Absolutely. The input schema is flat and agent-friendly, and every Apify actor is consumable via the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/platform/integrations/mcp), so AI agents can call this as a tool to monitor Hacker News autonomously.

# Actor input Schema

## `keywords` (type: `array`):

Brands, products, competitors or keywords to search for across tech communities (case-insensitive). Examples: `apify`, `your-startup`, `postgres`.

## `sources` (type: `array`):

Which communities to search. Currently supports the Hacker News open Algolia API — the fast, reliable, unblocked core. More sources can be added over time.

## `searchStories` (type: `boolean`):

Include Hacker News stories (posts, Show HN, Ask HN, submitted links).

## `searchComments` (type: `boolean`):

Include Hacker News comments that mention your keyword. Great for catching organic discussion and buying signals inside threads.

## `timeRangeDays` (type: `integer`):

Only return mentions created within the last N days.

## `maxResultsPerKeyword` (type: `integer`):

Safety cap on the number of mentions returned per keyword.

## `monitorMode` (type: `boolean`):

When enabled, the actor remembers previously seen mentions per keyword and only outputs mentions that appeared since the last run. Ideal for scheduled runs with webhook alerting (Slack, email, CRM).

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

Filter out low-signal stories below this HN points threshold. Comments have no points and are treated as 0 (only included when this is 0).

## `exactMatch` (type: `boolean`):

HN search is typo-tolerant (e.g. "shopify" can return "spotify"). When on, only items where the keyword appears as a whole word in the title/text are returned — avoids false positives for brand monitoring. Turn off for broader/fuzzy discovery.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "keywords": [
    "apify"
  ],
  "sources": [
    "hackernews"
  ],
  "searchStories": true,
  "searchComments": false,
  "timeRangeDays": 7,
  "maxResultsPerKeyword": 100,
  "monitorMode": false,
  "minPoints": 0,
  "exactMatch": true
}
```

# 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 = {
    "keywords": [
        "apify"
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("vertaizen/tech-community-monitor").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 = { "keywords": ["apify"] }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("vertaizen/tech-community-monitor").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 '{
  "keywords": [
    "apify"
  ]
}' |
apify call vertaizen/tech-community-monitor --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

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

```

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/EG9ibWq2JnYxsI2Uf/builds/40t6sB0ZQH3mDFCAG/openapi.json