Hacker News MCP server

Connect Hacker News to Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, Claude Code, Codex, Gemini, GitHub Copilot and any other MCP client, for your whole team. Metorial adds security, governance, and tracing, and gives everyone one Magic MCP URL to connect.

Deploy Hacker NewsBook a demo

What you can do with the Hacker News MCP server

Ask your agent in plain language. Each of these maps to a real tool on the server.

  • Use the get user tool in Hacker News
  • Search items in Hacker News
  • Use the list stories tool in Hacker News
  • Use the get item tool in Hacker News
  • Use the get comment tree tool in Hacker News
  • Use the get maximum item id tool in Hacker News

Supported Tools

get_user

Get User

Retrieve a Hacker News user profile by username. Returns karma, creation date, bio, and recent submission IDs. Usernames are case-sensitive.

search

Search

Full-text search across Hacker News content powered by Algolia. Search stories, comments, Ask HN, Show HN, and jobs. Supports filtering by content type, author, date range, and minimum points. Results can be sorted by relevance or date.

list_stories

List Stories

Retrieve a ranked list of Hacker News stories by category. Supports top, new, best, Ask HN, Show HN, and job listings. Returns story IDs with optional full story details. Top and new feeds contain up to 500 items; Ask HN, Show HN, and job feeds contain up to 200. Top stories can include jobs.

get_item

Get Item

Retrieve a Hacker News item by its unique ID. Items include stories, comments, jobs, Ask HN posts, polls, and poll options. Returns the full item data including author, score, text content, URL, and child comment IDs.

get_comment_tree

Get Comment Tree

Retrieve the full nested comment tree for a Hacker News story in a single request via Algolia. Unlike the Firebase API which requires recursive fetching of each comment, this returns the entire comment hierarchy at once.

get_max_item_id

Get Maximum Item ID

Retrieve the current largest Hacker News item ID. Walk backward through IDs with get_item to discover items; individual IDs may be unavailable.

get_updates

Get Updates

Retrieve recently changed Hacker News item IDs and usernames. Use get_item and get_user to retrieve their current data. This feed is a current snapshot, not a complete change history.

Connect Hacker News to your AI client

Every client uses the same Magic MCP URL, and so does any other MCP client. Add it once and sign in with SSO.

  1. Enable Hacker News in Metorial. In your Metorial portal, enable the Hacker News MCP server and sign in with the account that owns the data. Access stays governed by your team policies.
  2. Add a custom connector. Open Customize, then Connectors. Select Add, then Custom, then Web.
  3. Paste your Metorial MCP URL. Name it Metorial, paste your Magic MCP URL (<your-magic-mcp-url>) and continue.
  4. Sign in. Select Add and sign in to load Hacker News tools.

Run Hacker News through the Metorial gateway

One governed layer for every app your agents reach, not a separate connector per tool.

  • Give Hacker News and every other app to your whole team through one MCP gateway, behind your SSO.
  • Scope which teams and agents can use Hacker News tools with role-based access control, and trace every call.
  • Prefer to run it yourself? Metorial is open source and self-hostable.

More integrations teams use with Hacker News

Linkedin

Authenticate LinkedIn members with OpenID Connect, fetch the authenticated member profile, and create self-serve LinkedIn shares with text, article links, and uploaded images. Organization and Community Management workflows should move to a separate slate because LinkedIn restricts combining those products in one app.

Google Search Console

Query search traffic analytics including clicks, impressions, CTR, and average position, with filtering by query, page, country, device, search type, and date. Manage Search Console site properties by adding, removing, and listing sites. Submit, list, retrieve, and delete sitemaps. Inspect URLs to check indexing status, AMP results, rich results, and mobile usability.

Discord

Send, edit, and delete messages in channels. Manage servers (guilds), channels, roles, members, invites, webhooks, threads, scheduled events, auto moderation rules, audit logs, application commands, and custom guild emojis.

WordPress

Create, read, update, and delete WordPress posts and pages. Manage media library items, comments, categories, tags, site users, site metadata, editable site settings, content search, and WordPress.com site statistics. Supports WordPress.com hosted sites via OAuth and self-hosted WordPress sites via application passwords.

Dataforseo

Retrieve practical DataForSEO API v3 data for SEO, SEM, ecommerce, business listings, Google Play apps, content analysis, and AI optimization. Supports Google/Bing/Yahoo/YouTube organic SERP live search, Google Ads keyword metrics, DataForSEO Labs keyword and domain intelligence, backlinks, OnPage audits and results, domain analytics, Google Shopping and Amazon Merchant tasks, Business Listings and Google Reviews, Google Play App Data tasks, and AI keyword, LLM mentions, and live LLM response benchmarking.

Firecrawl

Scrape, crawl, search, map, parse, monitor, and extract data from websites and files with Firecrawl v2. Convert pages into markdown, HTML, screenshots, links, summaries, structured JSON, answers, highlights, and media URLs with browser automation, batch jobs, agent jobs, browser sandbox sessions, content monitors, and account usage visibility.

Technical notes for Hacker News

Read and search Hacker News content including stories, comments, jobs, polls, and user profiles. Retrieve curated story listings such as top, new, best, Ask HN, Show HN, and job stories. Look up user profiles with karma, submission history, and bios. Perform full-text search across all content with filtering by type, author, date range, and point thresholds. Track recently changed items and profiles via the updates feed. All access is read-only with no authentication required.

Frequently asked questions

Common questions about connecting Hacker News to AI agents with Metorial.

  1. How many tools does the Hacker News MCP server have?
    The Hacker News MCP server exposes 7 tools, including Get User, Search, List Stories. Each one is governed and traced through Metorial.
  2. Hacker News exposes tools your agents call on demand; it does not publish event triggers yet. Everything still runs through one governed MCP URL.
  3. Any MCP client, including VS Code, Windsurf, Zed, OpenCode and Grok. Each one reaches the Hacker News MCP server through the same Metorial URL.
  4. Use role-based access control to decide which teams, users, and agents can use Hacker News and which of its tools they can call.
  5. Yes. Metorial is open source, so you can run the Hacker News MCP server yourself or use the hosted gateway.

Connect Hacker News to production AI agents

See how Metorial gives your team governed access to Hacker News, with tracing and security controls built in.

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