Understanding Story Feeds

The Hacker News MCP server provides access to three primary story feeds that mirror the main sections of the Hacker News website. Each feed serves a different purpose and offers unique insights into what the community is discussing.

Top Stories represent the most popular submissions currently on Hacker News, ranked by a combination of upvotes and timing. These are the stories that have successfully captured community attention and risen to prominence through voting.

New Stories show the latest submissions as they arrive on the platform, regardless of votes or popularity. This feed is ideal for discovering fresh content before it gains widespread attention.

Best Stories highlight submissions that have demonstrated sustained value and engagement over time, using Hacker News's proprietary ranking algorithm that considers various quality signals beyond simple vote counts.

Retrieving Story Feeds

To access any of these feeds, simply ask your AI assistant in natural language. The server understands 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 information for each story, including the title, URL, author, submission time, score (number of upvotes), and the number of comments. This data arrives in an easily readable format that your AI assistant can present or analyze according to your needs.

Working with Individual Stories

Once you've retrieved a story feed, you can dive deeper into specific submissions. Each story has a unique identifier that allows you to request detailed information, including the full comment thread. Ask questions like "Tell me more about story #12345678" or "Show me the comments on the top story about artificial intelligence."

Practical Tips

For monitoring purposes, regularly checking the "new" feed helps you catch emerging topics early. If you're researching what's currently important to the tech community, the "top" feed provides a snapshot of popular opinion. When looking for high-quality content that has stood the test of time, the "best" feed offers curated excellence.

You can combine story retrieval with other server capabilities—for example, viewing top stories and then exploring comment threads to understand community reactions, or checking an author's profile after discovering an interesting submission.

The server maintains real-time access to Hacker News, so you're always working with current data rather than outdated snapshots.