skill

hn-cli

Hacker News CLI + Claude Code skill for practitioner research. Stdlib-only Python, Algolia + Firebase APIs

thevibeworks/hn-clicommunitylistedunreviewed

Set up

Skills are installed by placing their folder where your agent loads skills.

Download ZIP from GitHub Open the repository

The download comes from github.com/thevibeworks/hn-cli itself, not from our server, so what you get is exactly what its author published.

Install instructions come from the README

Skills do not use an MCP config. Follow the steps in the README below.

README

synced Oct 23, 2026

hn-cli

CLI and Claude Code skill for researching topics through Hacker News practitioner discussions.

Search stories, read full discussion threads, browse front-page listings. No API keys. No server to install. Just Python 3.

Install

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/thevibeworks/hn-cli/main/install.sh | bash

This installs:

hn CLI to ~/.local/bin/
hacker-sense skill to ~/.claude/skills/

CLI Usage

hn search "distributed systems"              # search stories
hn search "rewrite in rust" --type comment   # search comments
hn search "kubernetes" --sort date --count 5 # recent results
hn search "react" --points 100              # high-signal only

hn read 27016630                             # read a discussion thread
hn read 27016630 --comments 100              # more comments
hn read 27016630 --deep                      # full nested comment tree

hn front top                                 # top stories right now
hn front show --count 10                     # Show HN

hn user pg                                   # user profile

Add --json to any command for raw API output.

Claude Code Skill

Once installed, use /hacker-sense in Claude Code to start a research session. The skill teaches Claude to search HN, read the strongest threads, and synthesize practitioner signal with epistemic rigor.

The skill works with or without the CLI installed -- it can fall back to calling the HN APIs directly with curl.

How it works

Uses the public HN APIs directly:

API	What for
Algolia HN Search	Full-text search (stories + comments)
HN Firebase API	Items, users, front-page lists

No API keys required. No rate limits for normal use.

Requirements

Python 3.8+

License

MIT