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hn-summarize

Fetch and summarize Hacker News stories, articles, and comment threads via official APIs.

10.0k|808|Updated Nov 28, 2025
Search Tags:#api#summarize#Hacker News#news digest#cURL#Web scraping#comment threads
One-click install
npx skills add https://github.com/ykdojo/claude-code-tips --skill hn-summarize
Or copy as Structured Prompt for Agent▼
Please help me install this Agent Skill.
Skill: hn-summarize
Source: https://github.com/ykdojo/claude-code-tips/tree/main/skills/hn-summarize
Command: npx skills add https://github.com/ykdojo/claude-code-tips --skill hn-summarize

SYSTEM DOCUMENTATION & REQUIREMENTS

What problem does it solve?

Hacker News front ends like hckrnews.com are JavaScript-rendered and cannot be scraped with plain curl, making it hard to quickly gather top stories, article content, and discussion threads for summarization.

Core Features & Use Cases

  • Top Stories Retrieval: Pull the current front-page stories with points and comment counts using the official Firebase Hacker News API.
  • Story Search and Comment Trees: Find specific stories by topic via the Algolia search API and fetch full nested comment threads for discussion analysis.
  • Article Fetching with Fallbacks: Retrieve linked articles directly, falling back to Wayback Machine snapshots when pages are paywalled or JavaScript-heavy.
  • Use Case: Ask for the top 10 HN stories and receive a digest with each story's title, score, comment count, article summary, and grouped comment themes.

Quick Start

Summarize the top 10 stories on Hacker News right now, including the main themes from each comment thread.

Frequently Asked Questions about hn-summarize

High-intent search queries and answers about installing and using this skill.

FAQPage Schema
How do I get the top Hacker News stories from the command line?▼

Query the official Firebase API at hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/topstories.json to get story IDs in front-page rank order, then fetch each item's JSON for title, score, and comment count. Plain curl and python3 are sufficient since the API returns plain JSON.

How do I fetch Hacker News comments for a specific story?▼

Use the Algolia API endpoint hn.algolia.com/api/v1/items/OBJECT_ID, which returns the story with a nested comment tree. Flatten the children arrays and strip HTML tags to get readable comment text in thread order.

Why does curling hckrnews.com return an empty page?▼

hckrnews.com is a JavaScript-rendered front end, so curl only receives an empty HTML shell without story data. Use the official Hacker News Firebase and Algolia APIs instead, which return the same stories and comments as plain JSON.

How do I read a paywalled or JavaScript-heavy article linked from Hacker News?▼

Query the Wayback Machine availability API at archive.org/wayback/available with the article URL to find an archived snapshot. Fetch the snapshot URL with curl and strip HTML tags to extract readable text.

Can I sort Hacker News comments by points using the Algolia API?▼

No, the Algolia API's per-comment points field is now always null. Sort comments by thread order instead, which roughly matches Hacker News's default ranking.

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