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Hacker News MCP server

From: Hacker News

Find the API
REA analysis
Read the API spec
Plan the tools
Build MCP server + skill
Test with an MCP client
Package + setup

log

9MCP tools (9 read-only)

✓real MCP client test

200live call: get_item

noneno key needed

Download MCP server + skill (9 files) Hacker News docs

initializehacker-news-mcp 0.1.0, protocol handshake ok
tools/list9 tools, all schemas valid
tools/callget_item → HTTP 200 in 158 ms

official MCP SDK client (stdio) called get_item with {"id": 8863}:

HTTP 200
{
 "by": "dhouston",
 "descendants": 71,
 "id": 8863,
 "kids": [
  9224,
  8917,
  8884,
  8887,
  8952,
  8869,
  8873,
  8958,
  8940,
  8908,
  9005,
  9671,
  9067,
  9055,
  8865,
  8881,
  8872,
  8955,
  10403,
  8903,
  8928,
  9125,
  8998,
  8901,
  8902,
  8907,
  8894,
  8870,
  8878,
  8980,
  8934,
  8943,
  8876
 ],
 "score": 104,
 "time": 1175714200,
 "title": "My YC app: Dropbox - Throw away your USB drive",
 "type": "story",
 "url": "http://www.getdropbox.com/u/2/screencast.html"
}

Tool	Call	What
top_stories	GET /v0/topstories.json	IDs of the current top stories (up to 500)
new_stories	GET /v0/newstories.json	IDs of the newest stories (up to 500)
best_stories	GET /v0/beststories.json	IDs of the best stories
ask_stories	GET /v0/askstories.json	IDs of the latest Ask HN stories
show_stories	GET /v0/showstories.json	IDs of the latest Show HN stories
job_stories	GET /v0/jobstories.json	IDs of the latest job posts
get_item	GET /v0/item/{id}.json	A story, comment, job or poll by id
get_user	GET /v0/user/{id}.json	A public user profile by username
max_item	GET /v0/maxitem.json	The current largest item id

What we left out, and why

Logins, scraping and anything behind a paywallPlugboard only wraps documented public APIs and your own account through them.

Source: OpenAPI written by Remake from the public docs. Terms: Public read-only API (MIT-licensed docs). Be gentle with request volume.

Hacker News MCP server

Lets any AI agent that speaks MCP (Model Context Protocol) use Hacker News: 9 tools generated from the service's public API description (OpenAPI written by Remake from the public docs: https://github.com/HackerNews/API).

Install


npm install

npm test        # a real MCP client starts the server, lists the tools and makes one safe call

Connect it to your agent

Claude Code


claude mcp add hacker-news -- node /absolute/path/to/hacker-news-mcp/server.js

Claude Desktop, Cursor, and other MCP clients: add this to the client's MCP config (e.g. claude_desktop_config.json):


{

  "mcpServers": {

    "hacker-news": {

      "command": "node",

      "args": [

        "/absolute/path/to/hacker-news-mcp/server.js"

      ]

    }

  }

}

Any agent or app that can launch an MCP server over stdio uses the same command: node server.js.

As an agent skill: copy skill/hacker-news/ into your agent's skills folder (for Claude Code: ~/.claude/skills/). It tells the agent when and how to use these tools.

Settings (environment variables)

Variable	What
`HACKER_NEWS_BASE_URL`	Use another base URL (default `https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com`)
`HACKER_NEWS_ALLOW_WRITES`	`1` to allow tools that change data (0 of them). Off by default.

Tools

Tool	Method	What
`top_stories`	GET `/v0/topstories.json`	IDs of the current top stories (up to 500)
`new_stories`	GET `/v0/newstories.json`	IDs of the newest stories (up to 500)
`best_stories`	GET `/v0/beststories.json`	IDs of the best stories
`ask_stories`	GET `/v0/askstories.json`	IDs of the latest Ask HN stories
`show_stories`	GET `/v0/showstories.json`	IDs of the latest Show HN stories
`job_stories`	GET `/v0/jobstories.json`	IDs of the latest job posts
`get_item`	GET `/v0/item/{id}.json`	A story, comment, job or poll by id
`get_user`	GET `/v0/user/{id}.json`	A public user profile by username
`max_item`	GET `/v0/maxitem.json`	The current largest item id

Safety

Calls only hacker-news.firebaseio.com (plus hosts the API description names per operation). No other network access.
Read-only unless you switch writes on.
Your keys are read from your environment at call time; nothing is stored or logged by this server.
Follow Hacker News's terms: Public read-only API (MIT-licensed docs). Be gentle with request volume.

Built with Remake Plugboard from public documentation. Not affiliated with Hacker News.

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