Overview

Every item on Hacker News—whether it's a story, comment, poll, or job posting—has a unique numerical identifier. When you need to retrieve specific content rather than browsing feeds, querying by ID gives you direct, precise access to exactly what you're looking for.

Understanding Item IDs

Hacker News assigns sequential IDs to all content as it's created. You'll encounter these IDs in URLs (like news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12345678), in API responses when browsing stories or comments, or when someone shares a link to specific content. These IDs are permanent and never change, making them reliable references for accessing content even years after publication.

How to Query Items by ID

Retrieving a specific item through the Context7 Hacker News server is straightforward. Simply ask your AI assistant to fetch the item using its ID number. For example:

• "Get Hacker News item 38471628"
• "Show me the details for HN item 40123456"
• "Retrieve the Hacker News post with ID 39876543"

The server handles the request and returns comprehensive information about that item, including its type, content, author, timestamp, score, and any associated metadata.

What You'll Receive

The data returned depends on the item type:

For stories: You'll get the title, URL (if it's a link post), submission time, author username, current score, and the number of comments. If it's a text post (Ask HN, Show HN, etc.), you'll also receive the full text content.

For comments: The response includes the comment text, author, timestamp, and importantly, references to parent items and any child comments, allowing you to understand the comment's place in the conversation thread.

For other items: Polls, poll options, and job postings each return their relevant data fields appropriate to their type.

Practical Applications

Querying by ID is essential when you need to:

• Follow up on specific discussions you've previously identified
• Deep-dive into comment threads by retrieving parent and child comments sequentially
• Track specific stories over time by periodically checking for score and comment count updates
• Reference exact content in research or analysis without ambiguity
• Navigate conversation trees by following parent and child ID relationships

Tips for Effective Querying

When working with IDs, keep in mind that higher numbers represent newer content. If you're exploring related content, look for parent and child ID fields in responses—these create the connections between stories and their comments, or comments and their replies. You can traverse entire discussion threads by following these ID chains.

The direct access that ID-based querying provides makes it an indispensable tool for anyone conducting serious research, monitoring specific discussions, or building analytical workflows around Hacker News content.