Understanding Story Feeds

The Hacker News MCP Server provides access to several curated story feeds that reflect different aspects of community activity. Each feed serves a distinct purpose and offers unique insights into what's happening on the platform.

Top Stories represent submissions that have gained significant community traction through upvotes and engagement. These are the posts you'll find on the Hacker News front page—articles, discussions, and links that the community has collectively elevated as worthy of attention.

New Stories show the most recent submissions as they arrive on the platform. This feed is ideal for discovering content before it gains widespread visibility and for monitoring emerging topics in real-time.

Best Stories highlight submissions that have demonstrated sustained value and quality, typically combining high scores with positive engagement over time. This feed surfaces content that has proven particularly valuable to the community.

Retrieving Story Feeds

To access any of these story feeds, simply ask your AI assistant for the specific feed you're interested in. You can make natural language requests like:

• "Show me the top stories on Hacker News"
• "What are the newest submissions?"
• "Get the best stories from Hacker News"

The server will return structured data for each story, including the title, URL, author, score, submission time, and number of comments. This information gives you a complete picture of each submission without needing to visit the website directly.

Working with Story Data

Once you've retrieved a story feed, you can dive deeper into specific submissions. Each story has a unique identifier that allows you to access its full details, including the complete comment thread. This is particularly useful when you want to understand community reactions or find expert commentary on a specific topic.

You can also filter and analyze story data based on your needs. For example, you might want to identify stories about specific technologies, track submissions from particular domains, or find highly-discussed posts. The structured data returned by the server makes these tasks straightforward.

Practical Tips

For the most relevant results, consider which feed aligns with your goals. Use top stories to understand what's currently capturing widespread attention, new stories for real-time monitoring, and best stories when you want consistently high-quality content.

Remember that Hacker News updates continuously, so story rankings and scores change over time. If you're monitoring trends or tracking specific topics, periodic queries will help you stay current with evolving discussions.