Understanding Item IDs

Every piece of content on Hacker News—whether it's a story, comment, poll, or job posting—has a unique numerical identifier called an item ID. These IDs are assigned sequentially as content is created, making them stable references that won't change over time. When you need to retrieve specific content directly, querying by item ID is the most precise and efficient method available.

When to Use ID-Based Queries

ID-based queries are ideal when you already know exactly what you're looking for. Perhaps you've previously retrieved a list of top stories and now want detailed information about a specific one. Maybe you've found an interesting comment and want to explore its entire thread. Or you might be tracking a particular submission over time to monitor how its score and discussion evolve. In these scenarios, querying by ID gives you direct access without needing to search or filter through lists.

How to Query by Item ID

To retrieve a specific item, simply provide its numerical ID to the server. You can make natural language requests like "Get Hacker News item 38679345" or "Show me details for item 38680123." The server will fetch the complete data for that item, including all available metadata.

The information returned depends on the item type. For stories, you'll receive the title, URL, author, score, submission time, and the list of comment IDs associated with it. For comments, you'll get the comment text, author, timestamp, and references to both parent and child comments, allowing you to navigate the discussion tree.

Finding Item IDs

Item IDs appear in several places throughout your interactions with Hacker News data. When you retrieve lists of top or new stories, each result includes its item ID. Comment threads contain IDs for each comment. User profiles show IDs for all submissions and comments that user has made. You can also find item IDs in Hacker News URLs—they appear after "id=" in the web address.

Practical Applications

Querying by ID enables powerful workflows. You can bookmark interesting discussions and return to them later to see how they've developed. You can build systems that monitor specific submissions, tracking score changes and new comments over time. When analyzing user behavior, you can retrieve every item a user has submitted or commented on by querying their profile first, then fetching each item individually.

The direct nature of ID-based queries also makes them faster and more reliable than searching, since you're requesting exactly one known item rather than filtering through collections.