What Story Data Tells You

Every story on Hacker News contains rich metadata that helps you understand its visibility, engagement, and context within the community. When you retrieve stories through the MCP server, you'll receive several key data points that paint a complete picture of each submission.

Understanding Scores

The score represents the number of upvotes a story has received from the Hacker News community. This metric is crucial for gauging community interest and approval. A higher score typically indicates that the content resonates with readers and has been deemed valuable by the community.

Scores aren't static—they change as more users vote. When analyzing trends, pay attention to how quickly scores increase, as rapidly rising scores often signal breaking news or particularly compelling content. Stories on the front page typically have scores ranging from 50 to several hundred points, though exceptional posts can exceed 1,000.

Decoding Timestamps

Timestamps tell you when a story was submitted to Hacker News. The server typically provides this information in Unix timestamp format (seconds since January 1, 1970) or as formatted dates, depending on how you query the data.

Timestamps are essential for understanding story freshness and tracking how long it took for content to gain traction. By comparing submission time with current score, you can identify stories that are trending quickly versus those that gained attention more gradually. This temporal context helps you distinguish between breaking news and evergreen content that maintains steady interest.

Other Key Metadata

Beyond scores and timestamps, story data includes several other important fields:

Author (by): The username of the person who submitted the story. This helps you track prolific contributors or identify submissions from notable community members.

Number of comments (descendants): Shows the total number of comments in the discussion thread. High comment counts often indicate controversial or thought-provoking topics, even if the score is moderate.

Story type: Indicates whether it's a standard story, a job posting, or another submission type. This helps you filter content based on your interests.

URL: The link to the original content being discussed. Note that "Ask HN" and "Show HN" posts may not have external URLs as they're self-contained discussions.

Putting It Together

By examining scores, timestamps, and metadata together, you can make informed decisions about which stories deserve your attention, identify emerging trends before they peak, and understand the community's collective interests at any given moment.