Overview

When working with the Hacker News MCP Server, you'll often need to retrieve specific items by their unique identifiers. Whether you're looking up a particular story, comment, or poll, querying by ID provides direct access to exactly what you need without browsing through lists or feeds.

Every item on Hacker News—including stories, comments, polls, and poll options—has a unique numeric identifier. These IDs are permanent and never change, making them reliable references for accessing specific content.

Why Query by ID?

Querying specific items by ID is essential for several scenarios:

• Following up on discussions: When you've identified an interesting story or comment thread, you can return to it directly using its ID
• Deep-linking to content: IDs allow you to reference exact items in your workflows or documentation
• Tracking specific submissions: Monitor how particular stories evolve by checking their scores, comment counts, and updates over time
• Navigating comment threads: Move through discussion trees by following the parent and child comment IDs

How to Query Items by ID

To retrieve a specific item, simply provide the numeric ID to the server. You can ask your AI assistant in natural language, such as:

• "Get Hacker News item 12345678"
• "Show me details for item ID 87654321"
• "Retrieve the story with ID 11223344"

The server will fetch the complete data for that item, including all relevant metadata.

Understanding Item Data

When you query an item by ID, the server returns structured information that varies based on the item type:

For stories, you'll receive the title, URL (if it's a link post), author username, submission time, current score, and the number of comments. You'll also get a list of comment IDs if you want to explore the discussion.

For comments, the response includes the comment text, author, timestamp, parent item ID, and any child comment IDs. This allows you to understand the comment's context within the larger discussion thread.

For polls, you'll see the poll question, author, timestamp, and IDs of the available poll options.

Finding Item IDs

Item IDs appear in several places throughout Hacker News:

• In the URL when viewing stories or comments on the Hacker News website
• In the results when you query story feeds (top, new, or best stories)
• Within comment data as parent or child references
• In user profile data showing their submissions and comments

Practical Tips

When working with item IDs, keep these considerations in mind:

IDs are sequential: More recent items have higher ID numbers, though gaps exist in the sequence.

Deleted items: Some IDs may reference deleted content. The server will indicate when an item has been removed or is unavailable.

Building workflows: Save IDs of interesting items to create custom reading lists or monitoring systems. This enables you to track specific discussions over time without manual searching.