{"slug": "hacker-news-mcp-server", "title": "Hacker News MCP Server", "summary": "A new open-source Model Context Protocol (MCP) server gives Claude Desktop and Claude Code read-only access to Hacker News through four tools: browsing ranked feeds, retrieving items with nested comment trees, looking up user profiles, and full-text search via Algolia. The server, built in Rust and available on GitHub, requires no API keys or authentication and communicates over stdio, with tools marked as read-only to prevent any data mutation. The release expands Claude's capabilities by enabling direct interaction with Hacker News content within the AI assistant's interface.", "body_md": "A small, read-only [Model Context Protocol](https://modelcontextprotocol.io) server that gives\nClaude Desktop and Claude Code first-class access to Hacker News. It speaks MCP over **stdio** and\ntalks to two public, no-auth APIs:\n\n**Official HN (Firebase)**—`https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/`\n\n— feeds, items, and users.**Algolia HN Search**—`https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/`\n\n— full-text search.\n\nNo API keys, no accounts, nothing is mutated. Every tool is marked read-only.\n\n| Tool | When to reach for it |\n|---|---|\n`get_stories` |\nBrowse a ranked feed. Returns a compact list (id, title, author, score, comment count, url, `hn_url` ) with no comment trees — ideal for scanning the front page or a section. Params: `category` (`top` /`new` /`best` /`ask` /`show` /`job` , default `top` ), `limit` (default 30, max 100). |\n`get_item` |\nGo deep on one thread. Returns the item plus a nested comment tree walked breadth-first. The tree is hard-capped by `max_comments` (default 50) and `max_depth` (default 3) so it never blows up your context; a `truncation_note` tells you when replies were cut. Dead/deleted comments are skipped. Params: `id` (required), `include_comments` (default true), `max_depth` (default 3), `max_comments` (default 50). |\n`get_user` |\nLook up a profile by username (case-sensitive). Returns karma, the about text, account creation date, and submitted-item count. Param: `id` (required). |\n`search` |\nFull-text search across all of HN via Algolia. Params: `query` (required), `sort` (`relevance` default, or `date` ), `tags` (e.g. `story` , `comment` , `ask_hn` , `show_hn` , `front_page` ), `min_points` (int), `limit` (default 20, max 100). Returns hits with title, author, points, comment count, date, story URL, and `hn_url` . |\n\nTwo conventions across all tools: every Unix timestamp is returned both raw (`time`\n\n) and as an ISO 8601\nUTC string (`time_iso`\n\n), and every item carries a derived `hn_url`\n\n(`https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=<id>`\n\n).\n\nQuick rule of thumb: `get_stories`\n\n/`search`\n\nto find things, `get_item`\n\nto read one thing in depth.\n\nRequires a recent stable Rust toolchain (edition 2021).\n\n```\ngit clone https://github.com/devrelopers/hackernews-mcp\ncd hackernews-mcp\ncargo build --release\n```\n\nThe binary lands at `target/release/hackernews-mcp`\n\n.\n\nAdd an entry to your `claude_desktop_config.json`\n\n:\n\n**macOS:**`~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json`\n\n**Windows:**`%APPDATA%\\Claude\\claude_desktop_config.json`\n\n```\n{\n  \"mcpServers\": {\n    \"hackernews\": {\n      \"command\": \"/absolute/path/to/hackernews-mcp/target/release/hackernews-mcp\"\n    }\n  }\n}\n```\n\nUse the absolute path to the binary you just built (e.g.\n`/Users/you/hackernews-mcp/target/release/hackernews-mcp`\n\n). Restart Claude Desktop; the four tools\nwill appear under the 🔌 tools menu.\n\n```\nclaude mcp add hackernews -- /absolute/path/to/hackernews-mcp/target/release/hackernews-mcp\n```\n\n- Item fetches in\n`get_stories`\n\nand`get_item`\n\nrun concurrently with a politeness cap of ~10 in-flight requests. - Logs are written to\n**stderr** so they never corrupt the JSON-RPC stream on stdout. Set`RUST_LOG=debug`\n\nfor verbose tracing. - Missing items/users return an actionable error\n(\n`Item <id> not found — it may be deleted or the ID may be invalid.`\n\n) rather than a panic.\n\n```\nsrc/\n  main.rs     # tokio entrypoint + stdio transport wiring\n  client.rs   # shared reqwest client over the Firebase + Algolia APIs\n  tools.rs    # the four MCP tools + breadth-first comment-tree walker\n  types.rs    # data models and compact output shapes\n```\n\nMIT — see [LICENSE](/devrelopers/hackernews-mcp/blob/main/LICENSE).", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/hacker-news-mcp-server", "canonical_source": "https://github.com/devrelopers/hackernews-mcp", "published_at": "2026-05-29 23:32:33+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-05-29 23:45:03.523852+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-tools", "ai-infrastructure"], "entities": ["Hacker News", "Firebase", "Algolia", "Claude Desktop", "Claude Code", "Model Context Protocol"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/hacker-news-mcp-server", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/hacker-news-mcp-server.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/hacker-news-mcp-server.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/hacker-news-mcp-server.jsonld"}}