Understanding Story Feeds

The Hacker News MCP Server provides access to multiple story feeds that reflect different aspects of community activity. Each feed serves a specific purpose and helps you discover content based on different criteria.

Top Stories represent submissions that have risen to prominence through community voting. These are the stories currently featured on Hacker News' front page, having earned their position through a combination of upvotes, comment activity, and recency. When you retrieve top stories, you're seeing what the community collectively considers most noteworthy at this moment.

New Stories show the latest submissions as they arrive on the platform, regardless of their vote count or comment activity. This feed is ideal for catching breaking news or discovering content before it gains widespread attention. It's particularly useful for monitoring specific topics or staying ahead of trending discussions.

Best Stories highlight submissions that have demonstrated sustained value and engagement. This feed applies Hacker News' ranking algorithm to identify stories with the strongest combination of votes, discussion quality, and lasting interest.

How to Retrieve Stories

Accessing story feeds through the MCP server is straightforward. Simply ask your AI assistant for the type of stories you're interested in. For example, you might request "Show me the current top stories on Hacker News" or "What are the latest new submissions?"

The server returns structured data for each story, including:

• Title and URL of the submission
• Author username
• Current score (number of upvotes)
• Submission timestamp
• Number of comments
• Unique story identifier

This information gives you everything needed to understand the story's context and relevance without manually browsing the website.

Practical Applications

Use top stories to understand what's currently capturing the tech community's attention. This is valuable for staying informed about industry developments, identifying trending topics, or discovering high-quality content that's been vetted through community engagement.

Monitor new stories when you need real-time awareness of emerging topics or want to track submissions related to specific technologies, companies, or subjects before they become widely discussed.

Access best stories to find consistently valuable content that represents the highest quality discussions and submissions, making this feed excellent for research or content curation.

Working with Story Data

Once you've retrieved stories, you can drill deeper by accessing their comments, examining author profiles, or tracking how specific submissions perform over time. The story identifier returned with each item allows you to request detailed information about that specific submission whenever needed.