Understanding User Profiles

The Hacker News MCP Server provides comprehensive access to user profile information, allowing you to explore individual contributor data and activity patterns. Each Hacker News user maintains a public profile that includes their username, karma score, account creation date, biographical information (if provided), and complete submission and comment history.

To retrieve a user profile, simply ask your AI assistant about a specific Hacker News user by their username. The server will return structured data about that user, including their accumulated karma, which reflects the community's appreciation of their contributions over time.

Accessing Activity History

Every user's complete public activity on Hacker News is available through the server. This includes both submissions (stories and Ask HN posts) and all comments they've made across the platform.

When you request a user's activity history, you'll receive a comprehensive view of their contributions. Each submission entry includes the story title, URL (if applicable), submission time, score, and any associated comment thread. For comments, you'll see the comment text, when it was posted, its score, and context about which story or parent comment it responds to.

This historical data is particularly valuable for several purposes:

Research and Expert Identification: Find users who frequently contribute meaningful insights in specific technical domains. By reviewing their comment history, you can identify subject matter experts and thought leaders.

Pattern Analysis: Understand how particular users engage with the community over time, including what topics interest them and how the community responds to their contributions.

Context Building: When you encounter an interesting comment or submission, examining the author's history often provides valuable context about their expertise and perspective.

Practical Applications

The user profile and activity features enable several powerful use cases. You might track the activity of founders and developers to understand how they engage with community feedback. Researchers can analyze contribution patterns to study community dynamics. Teams can identify potential collaborators or advisors based on demonstrated expertise in specific areas.

To get started, simply ask your AI assistant questions like "What has [username] been posting about lately?" or "Show me the profile for [username]." The server handles all API interactions and returns organized, readable information about the user's presence and contributions on Hacker News.

This functionality transforms user profiles from static web pages into queryable, analyzable data that integrates seamlessly into your research and monitoring workflows.