What Are Story Data and Metadata Fields?

When you retrieve stories from Hacker News through the MCP server, each story comes with a rich set of data fields that provide context and information about the submission. Understanding these fields helps you make the most of the data you're working with and enables more sophisticated queries and analysis.

Core Story Fields

Every Hacker News story includes several essential pieces of information:

ID: A unique numerical identifier assigned to each story. This ID is permanent and can be used to retrieve the specific story or its comments at any time.

Title: The headline or title of the submission as written by the person who posted it. This is what appears on the front page and in story lists.

URL: The web address that the story links to. For "Ask HN" or "Show HN" posts without external links, this field may be absent, as these are text-based discussions hosted directly on Hacker News.

Score: The current point value based on community upvotes. This number reflects how many users have voted for the story and is a key indicator of community interest and approval.

Author (by): The username of the person who submitted the story. You can use this to look up the user's profile or track submissions from specific contributors.

Time: A timestamp indicating when the story was submitted, typically provided in Unix epoch format. This helps you understand how recent a story is and track trends over time.

Additional Context Fields

Beyond the basics, stories may include:

Descendants: The total count of comments and replies on the story. This gives you an immediate sense of how much discussion the submission has generated.

Type: Identifies the item type, which for stories is typically "story." This field helps distinguish stories from comments, jobs, or polls.

Text: For text posts like "Ask HN" submissions, this contains the body content written by the author. Regular link submissions won't have this field.

Dead/Deleted: Flags indicating whether a story has been removed or killed by moderators, helping you filter out unavailable content.

Using Metadata Effectively

When working with the MCP server, you can use these fields to filter and sort results. For example, you might prioritize high-score stories with many descendants to find the most engaging discussions, or track recent submissions by monitoring timestamps. Understanding what each field represents ensures you're interpreting the data correctly and can ask more precise questions of your AI assistant.