What is the Hacker News MCP Server?

The Hacker News MCP Server connects your AI assistant to Hacker News, one of the tech community's most respected discussion platforms. Instead of manually browsing the site, you can now ask your assistant to fetch stories, read comments, or research user profiles directly through natural language conversations.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, ensure you have:

• Close CRM with MCP server support enabled
• The Hacker News MCP Server installed and configured
• Basic familiarity with Hacker News and its content structure

Basic Usage

Once configured, interacting with Hacker News is as simple as making requests through your AI assistant. The server translates your queries into API calls and returns formatted results.

Retrieving Stories

Ask your assistant to fetch stories from different feeds:

• Top stories: "Show me the top 10 stories on Hacker News right now"
• New submissions: "What are the latest submissions on Hacker News?"
• Best stories: "Get the best stories from Hacker News today"

Each story includes the title, URL, author, score, submission time, and comment count, giving you a complete picture of what's trending.

Reading Comments

Dive into discussions by requesting comment threads:

• "Show me the comments on story 38947562"
• "What are people saying about this article?"

Comments are returned in a structured format that preserves the conversation hierarchy, making it easy to follow discussion threads.

Researching Users

Explore user profiles to understand community contributors:

• "Get the profile for user 'patio11'"
• "What has this user submitted recently?"

Access karma scores, submission history, and biographical information to identify thought leaders or track specific contributors.

Practical Applications

Stay informed: Monitor tech news and trending discussions without leaving your workflow. Your assistant can provide regular updates on topics you care about.

Research topics: Gather community perspectives on technologies, companies, or trends by accessing relevant discussions and expert commentary.

Content curation: Discover high-quality technical articles and resources that have been validated by the community's voting system.

Track mentions: Monitor discussions about your products or areas of interest, staying current with community sentiment.

Tips for Success

Start with broad queries like "top stories" to familiarize yourself with the data structure, then drill down into specific stories or users. Remember that all data is pulled in real-time, so you're always seeing current information. Use specific item IDs when you need precise results, or rely on natural language for exploratory queries.