Hacker News MCP Server

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for Hacker News, enabling LLMs to browse stories, inspect items, and look up user profiles via the official HN Firebase API.

Features

• Story Feeds: Fetch Top, New, Best, Ask HN, Show HN, and Job stories.
• Detailed Inspection: Get full details for any item (story, comment, job, poll) and user profiles.
• Live Updates: Access recently changed items and the current max item ID.
• Optimized for LLMs:
  • Responses formatted in clear Markdown (or JSON when needed).
  • Built-in character limit to prevent context overflow.
  • Pagination (limit / offset) on all list-based tools.
• Modern Stack: TypeScript + official MCP SDK + Zod schema validation.

Available Tools

Tool	Description
hn_get_top_stories	Top stories (paginated)
hn_get_new_stories	Newest stories (paginated)
hn_get_best_stories	Best stories (paginated)
hn_get_ask_stories	Ask HN stories (paginated)
hn_get_show_stories	Show HN stories (paginated)
hn_get_job_stories	Job stories (paginated)
hn_get_item	Full details for a specific item ID
hn_get_user	User profile by username
hn_get_updates	Recently updated item & profile IDs
hn_get_max_item	Current largest item ID on HN

All list tools accept limit (1–500, default 20), offset (default 0), and response_format (markdown or json).

Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18+ or Bun

Quick Run (no install)

# npx
npx -y @fritzprix/hn-mcp

# bunx
bunx @fritzprix/hn-mcp

Global Install

npm install -g @fritzprix/hn-mcp
hn-mcp

From Source

git clone https://github.com/fritzprix/hn-mcp.git
cd hn-mcp
npm install
npm run build
npm start

MCP Client Configuration

Claude Desktop

Add to claude_desktop_config.json:

• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
• Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "hackernews": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@fritzprix/hn-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Other MCP Clients (Cursor, Windsurf, etc.)

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "hackernews": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@fritzprix/hn-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Development

npm run dev    # run with tsx (no build needed)
npm run build  # compile TypeScript → dist/
npm run watch  # watch mode

License

MIT