Hacker News Scraper Agent Skill

> Search Hacker News stories and comments using the free Algolia API. No Apify token needed. Use when you need to find HN discussions, track mentions, discover Show HN launches, or monitor tech community sentiment.

2k tokens

context cost

the whole folder, loaded on every use

files

ships runnable scripts

copies elsewhere

how many repositories repackaged it

1086

stars on the repo

on the repository, not the skill itself

Install

one command, takes just this skill from the repository

npx skills add https://github.com/gooseworks-ai/goose-skills --skill hacker-news-scraper

What comes with it

5 834 bytes besides the instruction

scripts/search_hn.py

skill.meta.json

The instruction itself

6 sections, as written by the author

Hacker News Scraper

Search Hacker News using the free Algolia HN Search API. No Apify token or API key needed.

Quick Start

Only dependency: pip install requests.

# Stories about AI content marketing in last week
python3 skills/hacker-news-scraper/scripts/search_hn.py \
  --query "AI content marketing" --days 7

# Show HN posts in last month (summary view)
python3 skills/hacker-news-scraper/scripts/search_hn.py \
  --query "" --tags show_hn --days 30 --output summary

# Comments mentioning a specific tool
python3 skills/hacker-news-scraper/scripts/search_hn.py \
  --query "LangChain" --tags comment --days 14 --max-results 20

How the Script Works

Queries the Algolia HN Search API (search_by_date endpoint)
Uses numericFilters=created_at_i>{unix_timestamp} for server-side date filtering
Paginates until max-results reached
Normalizes results to a consistent schema
Applies optional keyword filtering (client-side)
Sorts by points (descending) and outputs JSON or summary

CLI Reference

| Flag | Default | Description |

|------|---------|-------------|

| --query | *required* | Search query |

| --days | 7 | How many days back to search |

| --tags | story | Item type: story, comment, ask_hn, show_hn |

| --max-results | 50 | Max results to return |

| --keywords | none | Additional filter keywords (comma-separated, OR logic) |

| --output | json | Output format: json or summary |

Output Format

{
  "id": "12345678",
  "title": "Show HN: My new tool",
  "url": "https://example.com",
  "author": "username",
  "points": 42,
  "num_comments": 15,
  "created_at": "2026-02-18T12:00:00.000Z",
  "hn_url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12345678",
  "text": ""
}

Cost

Free. No API key, no rate limits (within reason), no Apify credits.

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6k tokens scripts

How to use it

Copy the folder

Take gooseworks-ai/hacker-news-scraper from the repository into ~/.claude/skills for personal use, or into .claude/skills inside a project.

Check the name does not clash

The agent identifies a skill by the name field in its header. Two skills with the same name cannot sit side by side — one of them will be ignored.

Install what it needs

The instructions reference pip. Without those the skill loads but fails at the first command.