Hacker News MCP Server

Fetches structured data from Hacker News, including top, new, ask, show, and job stories.

Local serverstdioTypeScript 39

What is the Hacker News MCP server?

Fetches structured data from Hacker News, including top, new, ask, show, and job stories. The hacker news mcp server wraps that behind the Model Context Protocol, so an assistant can use it through 1 defined tool rather than through you.

What it actually does

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that provides tools for fetching stories from Hacker News. This server parses the HTML content from news.ycombinator.com and provides structured data for different types of stories (top, new, ask, show, jobs).

  • Fetch different types of stories (top, new, ask, show, jobs)
  • Get structured data including titles, URLs, points, authors, timestamps, and comment counts
  • Configurable limit on number of stories returned
  • Clean error handling and validation

Its toolset

Everything the assistant can do here goes through one of these:

  • Configuration — For the Claude desktop app, add the server configuration to: json // ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json (macOS) //

Adding it to your client

Setup follows the usual MCP pattern — install or clone the server, register it in your client's configuration file, restart the client. The configuration blocks on this page cover the common clients.

When to reach for it

Plenty of developer tooling servers cover similar ground. The differences that matter in practice are scope of access and how much setup stands between you and a working tool call. Hacker News's toolset — Configuration — is a fair guide to whether it matches your workflow. It is maintained by pskill9; worth a glance at recent repository activity before you build anything load-bearing on it.

SyncDev reviews every entry in this directory against the project's own documentation before publishing, and revisits them as servers change.

Caveats

  • It runs with your machine's permissions. That is convenient and also the reason to think about what you point it at before you approve a tool call.
  • MCP clients confirm each tool call by default. Leave that on until you have watched what the hacker news mcp server does with a few real requests.

Available tools

ToolWhat it does
ConfigurationFor the Claude desktop app, add the server configuration to: json // ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json (macOS) // %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json (Windows) { "mcpServers": { "hac

How to install the Hacker News MCP server

// ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json (macOS)
// %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json (Windows)
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "hacker-news": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/path/to/hn-server/build/index.js"]
    }
  }
}

Configuration as documented by the project. Restart the client after saving.

Example prompts to try

  • Use Hacker News to Configuration.

Frequently asked questions

Each story includes the title, URL (if available), number of points, author, timestamp, comment count, and rank.