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Querying Specific Items by ID
Overview
When working with the Hacker News MCP Server, you'll often need to retrieve specific items such as individual stories, comments, or other content using their unique identifiers. Every item on Hacker News—whether it's a story, comment, poll, or job posting—has a unique numeric ID that serves as its permanent reference. This guide explains how to query these items directly by their IDs.
Understanding Item IDs
Hacker News assigns a sequential numeric ID to every item posted on the platform. These IDs are visible in URLs when you browse the site. For example, in the URL https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38471822, the item ID is 38471822. You'll use these same IDs when querying the MCP server to retrieve specific content.
Querying an Item
To retrieve a specific item by its ID, simply ask your AI assistant to fetch that item from Hacker News. You can phrase your request naturally, such as:
- "Get Hacker News item 38471822"
- "Show me the details for HN story ID 38471822"
- "Retrieve Hacker News post 38471822"
The server will return structured information about the item, including its type (story, comment, poll, etc.), author, timestamp, content, score, and any associated metadata.
What You'll Receive
The data returned depends on the item type:
For stories: You'll receive the title, URL (if it's a link post), submission time, author username, current score, and the number of comments. If it's a text post (Ask HN, Show HN, etc.), you'll also get the post body.
For comments: The response includes the comment text, author, timestamp, and references to parent items, allowing you to understand the conversation context.
For other items: Polls, job postings, and other content types return their relevant fields and metadata.
Practical Applications
Querying by ID is particularly useful when you've discovered an interesting item through other means—perhaps from another feed, a monitoring system, or a reference in external content—and want to retrieve its full details and current status. It's also essential for following up on specific discussions, tracking how particular submissions evolve over time, or analyzing individual items in depth.
Since IDs are permanent, you can reliably reference and retrieve the same item repeatedly, making this approach ideal for building historical records or conducting longitudinal studies of Hacker News content.
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