Understanding Real-Time Queries

The Hacker News MCP Server provides live access to current discussions happening across the platform right now. Unlike cached or historical data, real-time queries give you immediate visibility into breaking news, emerging trends, and active conversations as they unfold in the technology community.

What Real-Time Access Means

When you query the server, it fetches the latest data directly from Hacker News at that moment. This means you're seeing the same stories, scores, and comments that users are viewing on the site itself. As votes change, new comments appear, or stories rise and fall on the front page, your queries will reflect these updates in real-time.

Monitoring Current Discussions

To track ongoing conversations, start by requesting the current top stories or new submissions. You can ask your AI assistant questions like "What are the top stories on Hacker News right now?" or "Show me the latest submissions." The server retrieves the current list, complete with scores, submission times, and basic metadata.

Once you identify a story of interest, dive deeper by accessing its comment thread. Request comments for a specific story to see what the community is saying. Since this data is live, you'll capture comments posted minutes ago alongside those from hours earlier, giving you the complete picture of how discussions are developing.

Tracking Specific Topics

Real-time queries are particularly valuable for monitoring topics relevant to your work. By periodically requesting top or new stories, you can identify when subjects of interest appear on Hacker News. For example, if you're tracking discussions about a specific technology, framework, or company, regular queries help you catch relevant submissions as soon as they gain community attention.

Best Practices for Real-Time Monitoring

Check frequently if you need to catch breaking discussions early. The "new" stories feed shows submissions as they arrive, while "top" stories reflect what's currently trending based on votes. Combining both views gives you comprehensive coverage of both emerging and established discussions.

When monitoring specific stories, request updated comment threads periodically to see new perspectives as they're added. Comment scores and nesting also update in real-time, helping you identify which responses the community finds most valuable.

Making the Most of Live Data

Real-time access transforms the server from a simple information retrieval tool into an active monitoring system. Whether you're tracking industry news, gathering immediate feedback on announcements, or staying current with technical discussions, live queries ensure you're always working with the most current information available from the Hacker News community.