Hacker News MCP

An MCP server that lets Claude (or any MCP client) search and read Hacker News, backed by HN's free Algolia search API. Ask in plain language; Claude calls the tools.

You:    What's the discussion on Rust async runtimes been like this past month?
Claude: → search_hackernews(query="rust async runtime", time_range="past_month")
        Here are the threads HN has been talking about… [summary of real stories]

You:    Dive into the comments on the top one.
Claude: → get_hackernews_thread(item_id="…", max_comments=30)
        The top commenters are split on… [summary of the thread]

The two tools compose — a follow-up like “pull comments on the first item” feeds the story id straight from the search into get_hackernews_thread:

See examples/ for full transcripts, and docs/claude-desktop.md to wire it into Claude Desktop in about five minutes.

What's in this repo

Two MCP tools:

• search_hackernews — search stories and comments by query, with filters for tag (story / comment / ask_hn / show_hn / all), time range, sort (relevance or date), and result limit.
• get_hackernews_thread — fetch a story's comment tree by id, flattened depth-first and bounded by max_comments / max_depth to keep the response within an honest token budget (with a truncated flag when it was trimmed).

Tech stack: Python 3.11+, the official MCP Python SDK, httpx, and — for development — pytest, ruff, and pyright.

Install

Uses uv:

git clone https://github.com/ccozad/hackernews-mcp.git
cd hackernews-mcp
uv sync

Run the stdio server directly with uv run hackernews-mcp (it speaks the MCP protocol on stdout, so you normally let a client launch it rather than running it by hand).

Use it with Claude Desktop

Add this to your claude_desktop_config.json (full guide, config-file locations, and troubleshooting in docs/claude-desktop.md):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "hackernews": {
      "command": "uv",
      "args": ["--directory", "/absolute/path/to/hackernews-mcp", "run", "hackernews-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Restart Claude Desktop, then ask it to "search HN for Rust async" and confirm a tool call happens. The first time Claude uses a tool, Claude Desktop asks you to approve it:

Architecture

As shown in the diagram at the top, Claude Desktop is the MCP client: on startup it spawns this server as a subprocess and talks to it over stdio. The server exposes two tools and forwards their work to HN's Algolia API over HTTPS.

Exchange sequence

A typical two-tool session — search surfaces a story, then a follow-up dives into its comments:

sequenceDiagram
    actor User
    participant Desktop as Claude Desktop
    participant Server as hackernews-mcp
    participant Algolia as HN Algolia API

    Note over Desktop,Server: On launch, Desktop spawns the server<br/>and negotiates initialize + tools/list over stdio

    User->>Desktop: "search HN for Rust async"
    Desktop->>Server: tools/call search_hackernews(query="rust async")
    Server->>Algolia: GET /search?query=rust+async&tags=story
    Algolia-->>Server: matching hits (JSON)
    Server-->>Desktop: hits array
    Desktop-->>User: ranked list of stories

    User->>Desktop: "pull comments on the first item"
    Desktop->>Server: tools/call get_hackernews_thread(item_id="…")
    Server->>Algolia: GET /items/{item_id}
    Algolia-->>Server: full nested thread (JSON)
    Note over Server: flatten depth-first, then bound<br/>by max_comments / max_depth
    Server-->>Desktop: root, comments, truncated
    Desktop-->>User: thread summary

Loading

How it works

Both tools are thin wrappers over HN's Algolia API. search_hackernews maps its arguments to Algolia's /search (or /search_by_date) endpoint — tag filters, a numericFilters time window, and hitsPerPage. get_hackernews_thread pulls the full nested thread from /items/{id} and trims it client-side. Input is validated before any network call; upstream errors, timeouts, and empty results all have defined behavior. See the tool docstrings in src/hackernews_mcp/ for the full contract.

Development

uv sync --extra dev      # install dev tools
uv run pytest            # run the test suite (network-mocked)
uv run ruff check .      # lint
uv run ruff format --check .
uv run pyright           # type-check

All four checks run in CI on every pull request across Python 3.11 and 3.12. The suite mocks Algolia and never hits the network; a gated live smoke test runs only when HACKERNEWS_MCP_LIVE_TEST=1 is set.

License

MIT