hackernews-mcp-server

hackernews-mcp-server

A Model Context Protocol server that lets AI assistants read Hacker News.

Plug it into Cursor, Claude Desktop or Claude Code and ask things like:

• "What is on the front page of Hacker News right now?"
• "Summarize the top 5 Show HN posts."
• "Are there any Ask HN threads about Rust today?"

It uses the official Hacker News API. No API key or account is needed.

Tool

fetch_hacker_news

Fetches current stories with title, link, score, author and comment count.

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
category	string	top	top, new, best, ask, show or job
limit	integer	10	Number of stories, from 1 to 30

The result comes in two forms: a compact text list for the model to read, and structured content for clients that support it.

{
  "category": "top",
  "stories": [
    {
      "id": 12345678,
      "title": "Show HN: An example project",
      "url": "https://example.com/project",
      "discussionUrl": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12345678",
      "score": 347,
      "author": "someuser",
      "comments": 72,
      "postedAt": "2026-01-15T12:00:00.000Z"
    }
  ]
}

Ask HN and similar posts also carry a text field with the body in plain text, truncated to 500 characters.

Setup guide

1. Build the server

Requires Node.js 18 or newer.

git clone https://github.com/wallaceluis/hackernews-mcp-server.git
cd hackernews-mcp-server
npm install
npm run build

Take note of the absolute path to dist/index.js; every client below needs it. Examples:

• macOS / Linux: /Users/you/hackernews-mcp-server/dist/index.js
• Windows: C:\\Users\\you\\hackernews-mcp-server\\dist\\index.js (backslashes doubled inside JSON)

2. Connect your client

Cursor

Create .cursor/mcp.json in your project (or ~/.cursor/mcp.json to enable it everywhere):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "hackernews": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/absolute/path/to/hackernews-mcp-server/dist/index.js"]
    }
  }
}

Then open Cursor Settings > MCP and check that hackernews is listed and enabled. The tool is available to the agent in chat.

Claude Desktop

Open Settings > Developer > Edit Config, which opens claude_desktop_config.json:

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

Add the server:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "hackernews": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/absolute/path/to/hackernews-mcp-server/dist/index.js"]
    }
  }
}

Quit and reopen Claude Desktop. The fetch_hacker_news tool shows up in the tools menu of the chat input.

Claude Code

claude mcp add hackernews -- node /absolute/path/to/hackernews-mcp-server/dist/index.js

Run /mcp inside Claude Code to confirm the server is connected.

3. Try it

Ask your assistant: "Use Hacker News to tell me what developers are talking about today."

Troubleshooting

Problem	Fix
Server does not show up or fails to start	Check that the path is absolute and that dist/index.js exists (run npm run build)
node not found	The client may not share your shell's PATH. Use the full path to node as command
"The Hacker News API is unreachable"	The machine needs outbound HTTPS access to hacker-news.firebaseio.com
Changes to the code have no effect	Rebuild with npm run build and restart the client

To test the server on its own, use the MCP Inspector:

npm run inspect

Development

npm run dev        # compile in watch mode
npm run typecheck
npm run inspect    # open the MCP Inspector against the built server
npm test           # unit tests + end-to-end tests through an in-memory MCP client

File	Responsibility
src/index.ts	Entrypoint: connects the server to the stdio transport
src/server.ts	MCP server and the fetch_hacker_news tool definition
src/hackernews.ts	Hacker News API client and result formatting

The server talks to the client over stdio, so stdout is reserved for the protocol. Log with console.error, never console.log.

How it works

The Hacker News API exposes a ranked list of ids per category and one endpoint per item. The server reads the list, loads the first limit items in parallel (10 second timeout each), drops deleted and dead posts, and converts HTML bodies to plain text. A story that fails to load is skipped instead of failing the whole call. Errors are returned as tool errors so the model can see what went wrong.

License

MIT