Understanding Item IDs

Every piece of content on Hacker News—whether it's a story, comment, poll, or job posting—has a unique identifier called an item ID. This numeric ID is the key to retrieving specific content through the Hacker News MCP Server. When you know an item's ID, you can access that exact piece of content directly, regardless of whether it's currently on the front page or buried deep in the archives.

Item IDs are permanent and sequential, meaning once assigned, they never change. You'll encounter these IDs in URLs when browsing Hacker News (for example, news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12345678), in API responses when retrieving lists of stories, and when exploring comment threads.

Retrieving Stories by ID

To access a specific story, simply provide its item ID to your AI assistant connected to the Hacker News MCP Server. You might say something like "Get me the details for Hacker News item 38477259" or "Show me story 38477259 from Hacker News."

The server will return comprehensive information about that story, including:

• The story title and URL
• The author's username
• Submission timestamp
• Current score (upvotes)
• Number of comments
• A list of comment IDs if you want to explore the discussion

This direct access is particularly useful when someone shares a Hacker News link with you, or when you're tracking specific submissions over time to monitor score changes and community engagement.

Accessing Comments by ID

Comments work the same way as stories—each has its own unique item ID. When you retrieve a story, the response includes IDs for all top-level comments. You can then request any comment specifically using its ID.

For example, if a story response includes comment IDs, you might ask "Show me comment 38477300" to read that specific comment. The server returns the comment text, author, timestamp, score, and crucially, the IDs of any child comments (replies). This allows you to traverse entire conversation threads by following the chain of comment IDs.

Practical Applications

Using item IDs becomes powerful when you need to:

• Bookmark and revisit: Save item IDs of interesting discussions to check back later for new comments or score updates
• Share specific comments: Reference particular insightful comments in your research or notes
• Build context: Start from a specific story or comment and explore the surrounding discussion systematically
• Track engagement: Monitor how specific submissions perform over time by checking the same item ID periodically

The direct access that item IDs provide makes the MCP server an efficient tool for focused research and content retrieval, eliminating the need to search or browse when you know exactly what you're looking for.