Hacker News MCP
Not yet source-checkedMCP server that lets Claude and other LLM clients read Hacker News stories, comments, users, and search results
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In short
Hacker News MCP is a free, open-source Python server that lets LLM clients read HN stories, comments, and search results via public APIs without keys.
Claude Desktop, Cursor, or Cline users who want their assistant to read Hacker News front pages, comment threads, and search results as part of a broader research or coding workflow.
Teams that need to post to HN, moderate submissions, or run high-volume server-side HN analytics — this is a local, read-only stdio tool, not a hosted API.
Hacker News MCP (mcp-hn) is a lightweight Model Context Protocol server, written in Python by Rithwik Ediga Lakhamsani, that exposes Hacker News as a set of tools any MCP-aware client — Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, Cline, and similar — can call directly. It ships four tools: get_stories (top / new / ask_hn / show_hn front pages), get_story_info (a story plus its comment tree), search_stories (keyword search via the Algolia HN endpoint), and get_user_info (a user's submissions and comment activity). Because everything hits the public Hacker News and Algolia APIs, there are no keys to provision, no rate-limit accounts to manage, and no data leaves the client-server pair. Install is a one-liner through Smithery (`npx -y @smithery/cli install mcp-hn --client claude`) or a manual `uvx mcp-hn` entry in your MCP config. Once wired, natural-language prompts like 'summarize today's top HN stories about AI agents,' 'what are the top comments saying about this Show HN,' or 'what has pg been posting lately' route to the right tool without extra scaffolding. It composes well with other MCP servers — the README explicitly demonstrates chaining with the Puppeteer MCP so Claude can fetch the linked article and the comment thread in the same turn, then synthesise both. The repo is small, MIT-licensed, and has been quietly maintained since December 2024 with ~74 stars and 23 forks at the time of writing. It is the canonical example of the 'tiny read-only MCP wrapper around a public API' pattern: minimal surface area, obvious value, five minutes to install.
A textbook 'good MCP server': one repo, one job, no keys, five minutes to install. I keep it wired into Claude Desktop alongside a browser MCP so I can ask 'what's HN saying about X today' and get a real answer with citations to the thread — much better than pasting URLs. If you're learning the MCP pattern, this is also one of the cleanest small codebases to read.
— The AI Tool Bible editorial team
Pros
- ✅ Zero-config: no API key, no account, works against the public HN and Algolia endpoints out of the box
- ✅ Covers the four things people actually want from HN in an LLM context — front pages, comment threads, search, and user activity
- ✅ One-line install via Smithery, or a two-line `uvx` entry in any MCP client config
- ✅ Composes cleanly with other MCP servers (README shows a Puppeteer + HN chain for article + comments summaries)
- ✅ MIT-licensed and small enough to fork or self-host without ceremony
- ✅ Because it's local stdio, no HN data flows through a third-party relay
Cons
- ⚠️ Read-only — no submit, upvote, flag, or comment actions (an intentional but real limitation)
- ⚠️ Small maintainer surface (single-author repo, sporadic updates) so bugs may sit
- ⚠️ No caching or pagination controls beyond what the underlying HN/Algolia APIs offer; large comment trees can blow out an LLM context window
- ⚠️ Only useful inside an MCP-capable client — not a standalone CLI or HTTP service
- ⚠️ Search quality is bounded by Algolia HN Search; nuanced semantic queries still miss things a human scroll would catch
Facts
- Open source
- Yes (license: MIT)
- GitHub stars
- 76 (checked Oct 29, 2026)
- Last GitHub push
- Jul 14, 2025
- First commit
- Dec 2024
Where this tool sits
Use cases
Frequently asked
- Is Hacker News MCP free to use?
- Yes, it is free and open-source under the MIT license. It requires no API keys or accounts because it directly accesses the public Hacker News and Algolia APIs.
- Which AI clients are compatible with this tool?
- It works with any MCP-aware client, including Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, and Cline. You can install it via Smithery or manually using uvx in your MCP configuration.
- Can I post to Hacker News using this server?
- No, this is a local, read-only stdio tool. It is not designed for posting, moderating submissions, or running high-volume server-side analytics. It only retrieves existing data.
- What specific data can I retrieve?
- It provides four tools: get_stories for front pages, get_story_info for comment trees, search_stories for keyword searches, and get_user_info for user activity and submissions.
- How difficult is the installation process?
- Installation is a one-liner command using Smithery or a manual entry in your MCP config. It is designed to be a minimal, lightweight setup that takes only a few minutes.