Hacker News API

news.ycombinator.com

Read-only live Hacker News stories, story details, and top-level comments backed by the public Firebase API. Newest-story pages use opaque offset cursors, while polling uses a source ID checkpoint and reports when a checkpoint has expired from the source's 500-item window.

Social & video
hacker-news
news
stories
comments
polling

Connect your agent Call over HTTP

4 endpointsDocs updated Sep 22, 2026

Endpoint health

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Stories newestLoading

Stories pollLoading

Stories by story idLoading

Connect your agent

Connect through MCP so your agent can find this API, read its docs, and call its endpoints.

Your agent

Setup guide

Add the server from your terminal.

Claude Code · terminal

claude mcp add --transport http agent-data https://agent-data.motie.dev/mcp

In Claude Code, run /mcp, select agent-data, then Authenticate. Sign in to your agent-data account in the browser.

Then ask your agent to use the Hacker News API for your task.

Call it over HTTP

Get an API key

Sign up free, generate an API key, and set it as AGENT_DATA_API_KEY in your environment. Your first 100 calls each month are free.

cURL · Stories newest

curl --request GET --get 'https://api.agent-data.dev/news-ycombinator-com/v1/stories/newest' \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer $AGENT_DATA_API_KEY"

Endpoints

Inputs and response fields for every endpoint in this API.

GETStories newest/v1/stories/newest

Read the source's newest-story window; ranking can change between cursor calls.

Input

limitOptionalQuery · integer, min: 1, max: 30, default: 20

Number of stories to return; maximum 30 per request

Example: 20

cursorOptionalQuery · string | null

Opaque cursor returned by the previous page

Response

itemsobject[]

items[].by?string | null

items[].idstring

items[].url?string | null

items[].deadboolean

items[].kids?integer[]

items[].text?string | null

items[].time?string | null

items[].typestring

items[].score?integer | null

items[].title?string | null

items[].deletedboolean

items[].parent_id?integer | null

items[].source_idinteger

items[].descendants?integer | null

checkpointstring

next_cursorstring | null

source_limitinteger

Fields marked ? are optional.

For the next page, pass next_cursor from the response as cursor. Leave it empty on the first call.

GETStories poll/v1/stories/poll

Drain a checkpoint backlog with a cursor; an absent source marker expires with 410.

Input

after_idOptionalQuery · integer, min: 1 | null

Last processed Hacker News story ID; required when cursor is omitted

Example: 49806335

limitOptionalQuery · integer, min: 1, max: 30, default: 20

Maximum number of new stories to return

Example: 20

cursorOptionalQuery · string | null

Opaque continuation returned when the checkpoint backlog exceeds limit

Response

itemsobject[]

items[].by?string | null

items[].idstring

items[].url?string | null

items[].deadboolean

items[].kids?integer[]

items[].text?string | null

items[].time?string | null

items[].typestring

items[].score?integer | null

items[].title?string | null

items[].deletedboolean

items[].parent_id?integer | null

items[].source_idinteger

items[].descendants?integer | null

checkpointstring

source_limitinteger

next_poll_afterstring

checkpoint_foundboolean

next_poll_cursorstring | null

Fields marked ? are optional.

For the next page, pass next_cursor from the response as cursor. Leave it empty on the first call.

GETStories by story id/v1/stories/{story_id}

Get a Hacker News story or item

Input

story_idRequiredPath · integer, min: 1

Numeric Hacker News story/item ID

Example: 49806271

Response

storyobject

story.by?string | null

story.idstring

story.url?string | null

story.deadboolean

story.kids?integer[]

story.text?string | null

story.time?string | null

story.typestring

story.score?integer | null

story.title?string | null

story.deletedboolean

story.parent_id?integer | null

story.source_idinteger

story.descendants?integer | null

Fields marked ? are optional.

GETStories by story id comments/v1/stories/{story_id}/comments

List top-level comments for a Hacker News story

Input

story_idRequiredPath · integer, min: 1

Numeric parent Hacker News story ID

Example: 49806271

limitOptionalQuery · integer, min: 1, max: 30, default: 20

Number of top-level comments to return; maximum 30

Example: 20

cursorOptionalQuery · string | null

Opaque comment-page cursor returned by the previous page

Response

itemsobject[]

items[].by?string | null

items[].idstring

items[].deadboolean

items[].kids?integer[]

items[].text?string | null

items[].time?string | null

items[].deletedboolean

items[].parent_id?integer | null

items[].source_idinteger

coveragestring

story_idinteger

next_cursorstring | null

Fields marked ? are optional.

For the next page, pass next_cursor from the response as cursor. Leave it empty on the first call.

Don’t see the endpoint you need?

Ask agent-data to add an endpoint or return more fields. Extensions are free and keep existing endpoints working.