Search Hacker News stories and comments using the free

Hacker news scraper

by gooseworks-ai · MIT license · ★ 1,220 on GitHub · updated Sep 21

Search Hacker News stories and comments using the free Algolia API. No Apify token needed.

---
name: hacker-news-scraper
description: >
  Search Hacker News stories and comments using the free Algolia API.
  No Apify token needed. Use when you need to find HN discussions, track mentions,
  discover Show HN launches, or monitor tech community sentiment.
---

# Hacker News Scraper

Search Hacker News using the free [Algolia HN Search API](https://hn.algolia.com/api). No Apify token or API key needed.

## Quick Start

Only dependency: `pip install requests`.

```bash
# Stories about AI content marketing in last week

Overview

Search Hacker News using the free Algolia HN Search API. No Apify token or API key needed.

Manual install (npx, ZIP)

Claude Codenpx skills add gooseworks-ai/goose-skills --skill hacker-news-scraper -g -a claude-code

Claude Code (manual)

mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && curl -sL https://codeload.github.com/gooseworks-ai/goose-skills/tar.gz/615c685f34f8 \
  | tar -xz -C ~/.claude/skills --strip-components=4 goose-skills-615c685f34f8/skills/monitoring/capabilities/hacker-news-scraper

Windows (PowerShell)

New-Item -ItemType Directory -Force "$HOME\.claude\skills" | Out-Null; Invoke-WebRequest "https://m.agentalley.io/zip/1636ccdd330da877618c/hacker-news-scraper.zip" -OutFile "$env:TEMP\hacker-news-scraper.zip"; Expand-Archive "$env:TEMP\hacker-news-scraper.zip" -DestinationPath "$HOME\.claude\skills" -Force

Claude.ai / desktopDownload the ZIP and upload it under Settings → Capabilities → Skills.

Codex, Cursor, other agentsPoint them at SKILL.md. The other files are plain text.

Connects with Agent Alley MCP · agentalley.io/mcp

Files included

SKILL.md2.1 KB
skill.meta.json263 B
scripts/1 file · 5.4 KB

Read the files here

gooseworks-ai/615c6853 files

SKILL.md

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hacker-news-scraper/SKILL.md70 lines · 2.1 KB

PreviewCode

Outline

RawView on GitHub

Hacker News Scraper

Search Hacker News using the free Algolia HN Search API. No Apify token or API key needed.

Quick Start

Only dependency: pip install requests.

# Stories about AI content marketing in last week
python3 skills/hacker-news-scraper/scripts/search_hn.py \
  --query "AI content marketing" --days 7

# Show HN posts in last month (summary view)
python3 skills/hacker-news-scraper/scripts/search_hn.py \
  --query "" --tags show_hn --days 30 --output summary

# Comments mentioning a specific tool
python3 skills/hacker-news-scraper/scripts/search_hn.py \
  --query "LangChain" --tags comment --days 14 --max-results 20

How the Script Works

Queries the Algolia HN Search API (search_by_date endpoint)
Uses numericFilters=created_at_i>{unix_timestamp} for server-side date filtering
Paginates until max-results reached
Normalizes results to a consistent schema
Applies optional keyword filtering (client-side)
Sorts by points (descending) and outputs JSON or summary

CLI Reference

Flag	Default	Description
`--query`	required	Search query
`--days`	7	How many days back to search
`--tags`	story	Item type: `story`, `comment`, `ask_hn`, `show_hn`
`--max-results`	50	Max results to return
`--keywords`	none	Additional filter keywords (comma-separated, OR logic)
`--output`	json	Output format: `json` or `summary`

Output Format

{
  "id": "12345678",
  "title": "Show HN: My new tool",
  "url": "https://example.com",
  "author": "username",
  "points": 42,
  "num_comments": 15,
  "created_at": "2026-02-18T12:00:00.000Z",
  "hn_url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12345678",
  "text": ""
}

Cost

Free. No API key, no rate limits (within reason), no Apify credits.

1	---
2	name: hacker-news-scraper
3	description: >
4	Search Hacker News stories and comments using the free Algolia API.
5	No Apify token needed. Use when you need to find HN discussions, track mentions,
6	discover Show HN launches, or monitor tech community sentiment.
7	---
8
9	# Hacker News Scraper
10
11	Search Hacker News using the free [Algolia HN Search API](https://hn.algolia.com/api). No Apify token or API key needed.
12
13	## Quick Start
14
15	Only dependency: `pip install requests`.
16
17	```bash
18	# Stories about AI content marketing in last week
19	python3 skills/hacker-news-scraper/scripts/search_hn.py \
20	--query "AI content marketing" --days 7
21
22	# Show HN posts in last month (summary view)
23	python3 skills/hacker-news-scraper/scripts/search_hn.py \
24	--query "" --tags show_hn --days 30 --output summary
25
26	# Comments mentioning a specific tool
27	python3 skills/hacker-news-scraper/scripts/search_hn.py \
28	--query "LangChain" --tags comment --days 14 --max-results 20
29	```
30
31	## How the Script Works
32
33	1. Queries the Algolia HN Search API (`search_by_date` endpoint)
34	2. Uses `numericFilters=created_at_i>{unix_timestamp}` for server-side date filtering
35	3. Paginates until max-results reached
36	4. Normalizes results to a consistent schema
37	5. Applies optional keyword filtering (client-side)
38	6. Sorts by points (descending) and outputs JSON or summary
39
40	## CLI Reference
41
42	\| Flag \| Default \| Description \|
43	\|------\|---------\|-------------\|
44	\| `--query` \| required \| Search query \|
45	\| `--days` \| 7 \| How many days back to search \|
46	\| `--tags` \| story \| Item type: `story`, `comment`, `ask_hn`, `show_hn` \|
47	\| `--max-results` \| 50 \| Max results to return \|
48	\| `--keywords` \| none \| Additional filter keywords (comma-separated, OR logic) \|
49	\| `--output` \| json \| Output format: `json` or `summary` \|
50
51	## Output Format
52
53	```json
54	{
55	"id": "12345678",
56	"title": "Show HN: My new tool",
57	"url": "https://example.com",
58	"author": "username",
59	"points": 42,
60	"num_comments": 15,
61	"created_at": "2026-02-18T12:00:00.000Z",
62	"hn_url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12345678",
63	"text": ""
64	}
65	```
66
67	## Cost
68
69	Free. No API key, no rate limits (within reason), no Apify credits.
70