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Searching for Specific Stories and Comments by ID
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, and they serve as permanent references to specific items. You'll often see these IDs in Hacker News URLs (like news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12345678) or when users reference particular discussions.
Why Search by ID?
Searching by ID is the most direct way to access specific content when you know exactly what you're looking for. This approach is particularly useful when:
- Someone shares a link to a specific Hacker News discussion and you want to analyze it
- You're tracking a particular story or comment thread over time
- You need to retrieve content referenced in research or documentation
- You're building monitoring tools that track specific submissions
Unlike browsing through story feeds, searching by ID gives you immediate access to the exact item you need, regardless of its age or current ranking.
Retrieving Stories by ID
To access a specific story, simply ask your AI assistant to fetch the Hacker News item using its ID. For example, you might say "Get Hacker News story 12345678" or "Show me the details for Hacker News item 12345678."
The server will return comprehensive information about the story, including its title, URL, author, score, submission time, and the number of comments. This gives you a complete snapshot of the story's metadata without needing to visit the website.
Accessing Comments by ID
Comments work identically to stories—each has its own unique ID. When you request a comment by ID, you'll receive the comment's text, author, timestamp, and information about its position in the discussion thread, including parent and child comments.
This is especially valuable for deep-diving into specific parts of long discussion threads or when you want to analyze particular comments that have been referenced elsewhere.
Finding Item IDs
If you have a Hacker News URL, the item ID is the number following id= in the address. You can also discover IDs by first browsing story feeds and then examining the items that interest you—each returned item includes its ID in the structured data.
Practical Tips
When working with item IDs, remember that lower numbers represent older content, as IDs are assigned sequentially. If you're researching historical discussions, you'll be working with smaller ID numbers. Additionally, not all IDs are valid—some numbers may correspond to deleted content or may never have been assigned.
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