# Hacker News Search & Monitor (`agentictools/hacker-news-search`) Actor

Search and export Hacker News stories, comments, and Ask or Show HN by keyword, author, points, or date. No API key.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/agentictools/hacker-news-search.md
- **Developed by:** [Ken Agland](https://apify.com/agentictools) (community)
- **Categories:** News, Developer tools
- **Features:** Limited permissions
- **Stats:** 3 total users, 2 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

$0.50 / 1,000 item returneds

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/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes.
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.

Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md.

## 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.

Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run.

For examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below.

Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`).

# README

## Hacker News Search & Monitor

Search and export Hacker News stories, comments, and Ask/Show HN by keyword, author, or date.

### What it does

- Search all of Hacker News by keyword using the free Algolia API (no API key needed).
- Pick the item type: stories, comments, Show HN, Ask HN, or front page stories.
- Filter by minimum points, author, and a recency window in hours.
- Sort by relevance or by date (newest first).
- Export clean, flat records to a dataset plus an aggregate summary in OUTPUT.

### Example input

Top stories mentioning "apify":

```json
{
  "query": "apify",
  "tags": "story",
  "maxItems": 20
}
```

Newest Show HN posts from the last 48 hours with at least 5 points:

```json
{
  "query": "",
  "tags": "show_hn",
  "minPoints": 5,
  "sinceHours": 48,
  "byDate": true,
  "maxItems": 50
}
```

Everything a specific author posted:

```json
{
  "query": "",
  "tags": "story",
  "author": "pg",
  "maxItems": 100
}
```

### Input

| Field | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| `query` | string | Full-text search term. Leave empty to list newest or most relevant items for the chosen type. |
| `tags` | string | Item type: `story`, `comment`, `show_hn`, `ask_hn`, or `front_page`. Default `story`. |
| `minPoints` | integer | Keep only items with at least this many points. Comments usually have no points. |
| `author` | string | Keep only items by this Hacker News username. Leave empty for any author. |
| `sinceHours` | integer | Keep only items created within this many hours. 0 disables the time filter. |
| `maxItems` | integer | How many items to return (auto-paginated, max 1000). |
| `byDate` | boolean | When true, sort newest first. When false, sort by relevance. |

### Output

Each dataset item is one hit:

```json
{
  "title": "Show HN: Apify SDK, a scalable web crawling library for JavaScript",
  "url": "https://github.com/apifytech/apify-js",
  "author": "jancurn",
  "points": 78,
  "numComments": 8,
  "createdAt": "2018-09-25T08:24:40Z",
  "objectID": "18064493",
  "hnUrl": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18064493",
  "text": null
}
```

For comments and Ask HN posts, `text` holds the comment or question body, and `title` and `url` point at the parent story when the item is a comment.

#### Run summary (OUTPUT)

The run's default key-value store record `OUTPUT` holds an aggregate for the whole result set:

```json
{
  "query": {
    "query": "apify",
    "tags": "story",
    "byDate": false
  },
  "itemsReturned": 20,
  "requestedMaxItems": 20,
  "scanned": 20,
  "totalPoints": 512,
  "topItem": {
    "title": "...",
    "points": 132,
    "author": "sathish316",
    "hnUrl": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4058874"
  },
  "generatedFrom": "https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search"
}
```

### How it works

The Actor calls the public Hacker News Algolia API. It combines your item type and author into a tag filter, applies a recency window with the `created_at_i` numeric filter, and paginates until it has `maxItems` results or runs out of matches. The points floor is applied while paging because the API does not filter on points server-side. No API key is needed.

MIT licensed.

# Actor input Schema

## `query` (type: `string`):

Full-text search term matched against titles, URLs, and comment text. Leave empty to list the newest or most relevant items for the chosen type.

## `tags` (type: `string`):

Which kind of item to return. Story is a normal post, Comment is a reply, Ask HN and Show HN are those categories, Front page is stories that reached the homepage.

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

Only keep items with at least this many points. Comments usually have no points, so a value above 0 filters them out.

## `author` (type: `string`):

Only keep items posted by this Hacker News username (for example pg). Leave empty for any author.

## `sinceHours` (type: `integer`):

Only keep items created within this many hours from now. Set to 0 to disable the time filter and search all of Hacker News history.

## `maxItems` (type: `integer`):

How many items to return. Results are paginated automatically until this count is reached or there are no more matches.

## `byDate` (type: `boolean`):

When on, return the newest matches first. When off, return the most relevant matches first.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "query": "large language models",
  "tags": "story",
  "minPoints": 0,
  "author": "pg",
  "sinceHours": 0,
  "maxItems": 50,
  "byDate": false
}
```

# 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 = {
    "query": "apify"
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("agentictools/hacker-news-search").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 = { "query": "apify" }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("agentictools/hacker-news-search").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "query": "apify"
}' |
apify call agentictools/hacker-news-search --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,agentictools/hacker-news-search"
        }
    }
}
```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/MHdcG5SAidyhEku9T/builds/y9wj2hc3LBMVmXJll/openapi.json