Understanding User Profiles

Every Hacker News user has a public profile containing valuable information about their activity and contributions to the community. Using this MCP server, you can easily access user profiles to view submission history, comments, karma scores, and biographical details. This capability is particularly useful for researching subject matter experts, tracking thought leaders, or understanding individual contribution patterns within the community.

How to Look Up a User Profile

To retrieve a user's profile information, simply ask your AI assistant about a specific Hacker News user. You can make requests like:

• "Show me the profile for user [username]"
• "What's the karma score for [username]?"
• "Get information about [username]'s Hacker News account"

The server will return structured data including the user's account creation date, total karma, and their "about" section if they've filled one out. This gives you immediate insight into how established and active a user is within the community.

Accessing User Activity History

Beyond basic profile information, you can explore a user's complete activity history. This includes both their submitted stories and their comment history, providing a comprehensive view of how they participate in discussions and what topics interest them.

To view submission history, request something like "What stories has [username] submitted?" You'll receive a list of all stories they've posted, complete with titles, URLs, scores, and timestamps. This is valuable for understanding what content a user shares and how the community responds to their contributions.

For comment history, ask "Show me recent comments from [username]" or "What has [username] been discussing lately?" The server retrieves their comments, allowing you to see which discussions they're participating in and what perspectives they're sharing.

Practical Applications

User profile and activity lookups serve several purposes:

Identifying Experts: Find users who consistently contribute to specific technical domains by examining their submission and comment patterns.

Research Verification: Check a user's history and karma to assess their credibility and areas of expertise when evaluating technical advice or opinions.

Community Analysis: Study how influential users engage with the platform to understand community dynamics and discussion patterns.

Trend Tracking: Follow specific users who reliably surface interesting content or provide insightful commentary in your areas of interest.

The server makes all this information instantly accessible through simple conversational requests, eliminating the need to manually browse profiles or track activity across multiple pages.