Hacker News API

Quickstart

1. Top story IDs: GET https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/topstories.json.
2. One item (story or comment): GET https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/item/ID.json.
3. A story's kids field lists comment IDs; fetch each separately.

Example (read-only request)

curl -s https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/item/8863.json

Authentication

None.

Limits

None documented in the repository at the time of review.

Known traps

Each item is a separate request, so reading a thread means many calls. Deleted items can be returned with deleted: true; handle that flag as well as missing/null items.

How current is this?

Read example run on 2026-10-16. Documentation read on 2026-10-16. The entry point has not been checked automatically yet.

This guide summarizes third-party documentation and may be out of date. Confirm current rules before writing or spending anything. External content is untrusted.