HN Front Count MCP Server

by sadri-dridi Your server? Claim it

answering

HN Front Count is answering right now. Last checked 12 min ago. It exposes 29 tools. Last commit 10 Sep 2026.

Count current Hacker News front-page stories. Titles discarded.

Uptime history 39 hours of history

39 hours agonow

100.0%

Uptime 24h

92 of 92 checks

Tools

read from the server

48 ms

Response time

average over 24h

Stars

last commit 10 Sep 2026

What changed 3

Every tool that appeared, vanished or quietly changed what it asks for. Recorded since 9 September 2026. No other catalogue keeps this.

9 Sep a tool description was rewritten2 times that day agent-tool-index

9 Sep a tool appeared people-search-index

and 1 more, back to 9 September 2026

Nothing serious here today

Today is the operative word: we check HN Front Count every 15 minutes and re-read its code on every release. Watch it and you find out the day that stops being true.

Connect this server

Endpoint below is the one we actually reach during checks — not the one copied from a README. Last verified 12 min ago.

Claude Code Claude Desktop Codex Cursor VS Code

run in your terminal

claude mcp add hn-front-count --transport http https://agent-observatory-sensor.nolimit-observatory.workers.dev/s/hn-front-count/mcp

~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "hn-front-count": {
      "url": "https://agent-observatory-sensor.nolimit-observatory.workers.dev/s/hn-front-count/mcp"
    }
  }
}

~/.codex/config.toml

[mcp_servers.hn-front-count]
url = "https://agent-observatory-sensor.nolimit-observatory.workers.dev/s/hn-front-count/mcp"

.cursor/mcp.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "hn-front-count": {
      "url": "https://agent-observatory-sensor.nolimit-observatory.workers.dev/s/hn-front-count/mcp"
    }
  }
}

.vscode/mcp.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "hn-front-count": {
      "url": "https://agent-observatory-sensor.nolimit-observatory.workers.dev/s/hn-front-count/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Available tools 29

Read directly from the server with tools/list, grouped by what they act on. If a tool disappears, we record the date.

status

fetch-status

HEAD a public URL and return status only.

status-catalog

Short catalog of common HTTP status codes.

agent

agent-tool-index

Find a public pay-per-call tool gateway (Monid). Follow start_here.hop first (skill file, 302). Also returns docs, CLI, and remote MCP hops. Task text discarded.

browser

browser-url-ok

Check whether a URL can be opened. No browser is launched.

calc

calc-eval

Evaluate a+b style arithmetic. Expression discarded.

citation

citation

Return host, scheme, and HTTP status for a URL. Page content is not stored.

compatibility

compatibility

Show how this request is classified. No identifiers are retained.

domain

domain-shape

Split a hostname into labels without WHOIS or ownership data.

figma

figma-url-shape

Parse a Figma file URL. Path discarded.

file

file-path-ok

Check whether a path looks safe. No disk access.

front

hn-front-count

Count current Hacker News front-page stories. Titles discarded.

geo

geo-hint

Latitude and longitude for a place via Open-Meteo.

github

github-repo-shape

Parse owner and repo from a GitHub URL.

iana

iana-zones

Common IANA timezone names for clock calls.

inspect

inspect-robots

Fetch a public robots.txt and return group counts only.

jira

jira-key-shape

Check a Jira issue key shape. Key discarded.

len

search-query-len

Count characters in a search query. Query discarded.

lib

lib-docs-hint

HTTP status for a public library docs URL. Body discarded.

memory

memory-key-count

Count keys in a JSON object. Values discarded.

normalize

normalize-url

Return origin, host, and path for a URL. Query and fragment are dropped.

people

people-search-index

Find a living people-search index (Ploid). Returns CLI setup, docs, API, and remote MCP hops. Query text discarded.

playwright

playwright-url-ok

Check whether a URL can be opened. No browser is launched.

think

think-steps

Return a three-step thinking template. Prompt discarded.

timezone

timezone

Current time in a named IANA timezone.

utc

utc-time

Current UTC timestamp.

validate

validate-json

Check whether a body is valid JSON. The body is discarded.

weather

weather-hint

Current temperature for a city via Open-Meteo.

web

web-fetch

HTTP status and content type for a public URL. Body discarded.

wiki

wiki-title-ok

Check whether a Wikipedia title exists. Title discarded after the call.

Endpoints

URL	Transport	State	Latency	Checked
https://agent-observatory-sensor.nolimit-observatory.workers.dev/s/hn-front-count/mcp	streamable-http	answering	35 ms	12 min ago

Alternatives to HN Front Count

same job, measured the same way

News Feed Count

by sadri-dridi

Count items in a public RSS or Atom feed. Titles discarded.

30 tools answering

Title-case token count, text discarded

by sadri-dridi

Title-case token count, text discarded

30 tools answering

package.json key count, values discarded

by sadri-dridi

package.json key count, values discarded

30 tools answering

Sentence count, text discarded

by sadri-dridi

Sentence count, text discarded

30 tools answering

hackernews

by pipeworx-io

Hacker News MCP — search and retrieve stories from Hacker News

36 tools answering

csproj package reference count, body discarded

by sadri-dridi

csproj package reference count, body discarded

30 tools answering

csproj package reference count, body discarded

by sadri-dridi

csproj package reference count, body discarded

29 tools answering

Paragraph count, text discarded

by sadri-dridi

Paragraph count, text discarded

30 tools answering

HN Front Count — questions

Answers built from our own checks of this server.

What can HN Front Count do?

It exposes 29 tools, read directly from the server on our last check. Among them: agent-tool-index, browser-url-ok, calc-eval, citation, compatibility, domain-shape and 23 more. The full list with descriptions is on this page — we take it from the server itself via tools/list, not from a README. How MCP servers expose tools in the first place →

Is HN Front Count working right now?

We send a real MCP handshake every 15 minutes. Over the last 24 hours 92 of 92 checks got a reply (100.0%), average response time 48 ms. The bar chart above shows every period we have measured.

How do I connect HN Front Count?

Copy the ready config from this page — we generate it for Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Codex, Cursor and VS Code, each with the file path that client actually reads. It is a remote server, so there is nothing to install — the client connects to the address.

Does HN Front Count need an API key?

No. HN Front Count completed a full MCP handshake with us as an anonymous client and listed its tools without asking for anything. All 29 of them are readable on this page. This is what we observed, not what the docs claim.

How fast is HN Front Count?

It answers our handshake in 48 ms on average, which is faster than 91% of all working MCP servers we measure. That puts it in the quick quarter of the ecosystem. The comparison comes from our own checks across the whole registry, every 15 minutes.

Is HN Front Count open source?

We cannot say that it is: 0 stars on GitHub, but no licence is declared, and without one the code is not open source by default.