Overview

The Hacker News MCP server provides multiple ways to retrieve stories from the platform. Understanding these different feeds and how to access them will help you quickly find the most relevant content for your needs. This guide covers the main story retrieval methods and how to effectively use them.

Available Story Feeds

Top Stories

Top stories represent the most popular content currently on Hacker News, ranked by community votes and recency. These are the stories you'll see on the front page and typically reflect what the tech community considers most important or interesting right now. Use this feed when you want to understand current trends or see what's generating the most engagement.

To retrieve top stories, simply ask your AI assistant for "top stories on Hacker News" or "what's trending on Hacker News." The server will return a list of stories with their titles, URLs, scores, authors, and submission times.

New Stories

The new stories feed shows the most recent submissions to Hacker News, regardless of their score or popularity. This feed updates constantly as users submit content and is ideal for discovering emerging topics before they gain widespread attention or for monitoring specific areas of interest in real-time.

Request new stories by asking for "recent Hacker News submissions" or "latest stories on Hacker News."

Best Stories

Best stories are those that have demonstrated lasting value over time, combining high scores with sustained community interest. This feed filters for quality and substance, making it useful when you want to find particularly insightful or important content without wading through every new submission.

Access this feed by requesting "best Hacker News stories" or "highest quality recent posts."

Working with Story Data

Each story returned by the server includes comprehensive metadata: the title, external URL (if applicable), points scored, username of the submitter, submission timestamp, and the number of comments. This structured data allows you to quickly assess relevance and decide which stories warrant deeper investigation.

You can also request specific stories by their ID if you're tracking particular submissions or following up on previously discovered content. Simply reference the story by number or provide its URL.

Practical Tips

When retrieving stories, consider combining feed access with comment retrieval to get the full picture—often the discussion contains insights as valuable as the linked content itself. For ongoing monitoring, regularly checking new stories helps you catch emerging trends early, while top stories give you a reliable snapshot of the community's current focus.