Understanding Item Retrieval

The Hacker News MCP Server allows you to retrieve specific content by using unique identifiers assigned to every item on the platform. Whether you're looking for a particular story, comment, poll, or job posting, each piece of content has a distinct numeric ID that serves as its permanent reference.

What Are Hacker News IDs?

Every item posted to Hacker News—stories, comments, polls, and jobs—receives a unique numeric identifier when it's created. These IDs are sequential and permanent, meaning an item's ID never changes. You might encounter these IDs in Hacker News URLs (like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12345678) or when browsing through comment threads and story listings.

Querying by ID

To retrieve a specific item, simply request it using its numeric identifier. The server will return comprehensive information about that item, including:

• Item type (story, comment, poll, job, or poll option)
• Author information (username of the submitter)
• Timestamp (when the item was created)
• Content (title and URL for stories, text for comments)
• Engagement metrics (score, number of comments)
• Relationships (parent items, child comments)

For stories, you'll receive the title, external URL (if applicable), submission time, author, current score, and a list of comment IDs associated with the discussion. For comments, you'll get the comment text, author, timestamp, and references to both parent and child comments, allowing you to reconstruct entire conversation threads.

Practical Applications

Querying by ID is particularly useful when you need to:

Follow up on specific discussions: If you've previously identified an interesting story or comment thread, you can return to it directly using its ID without searching through current listings.

Track item evolution: Since IDs are permanent, you can periodically query the same item to see how its score changes, how many new comments it receives, or how community engagement develops over time.

Navigate comment threads: When exploring discussions, you'll receive comment IDs that you can then query individually to dive deeper into specific conversation branches.

Reference specific content: When sharing findings or building reports, IDs provide unambiguous references to exact items, ensuring others can locate precisely the same content.

Working with Multiple IDs

You can efficiently gather information about multiple items by requesting them sequentially. This is valuable when analyzing entire comment threads, comparing multiple stories, or researching a user's recent activity (their profile includes IDs of their submissions and comments).

The ID-based retrieval system provides direct, reliable access to any content on Hacker News, making it simple to build sophisticated workflows around specific discussions, stories, or community members.