Hacker News

CLI tool for the Hacker News API. No authentication required.

CLI Usage

Run scripts/hn.sh <command>. All commands support --json for raw JSON output.

Browse Stories

# Top/trending stories (default 10)
scripts/hn.sh top
scripts/hn.sh top --limit 20

# Other lists
scripts/hn.sh new --limit 5     # newest
scripts/hn.sh best --limit 10   # highest rated
scripts/hn.sh ask                # Ask HN
scripts/hn.sh show               # Show HN
scripts/hn.sh jobs               # job postings

View Item Details & Comments

# Full item details (story, comment, job, poll)
scripts/hn.sh item 12345678

# Top comments on a story
scripts/hn.sh comments 12345678
scripts/hn.sh comments 12345678 --limit 10 --depth 2

User Profiles

scripts/hn.sh user dang

Search

# Basic search
scripts/hn.sh search "rust programming"

# With filters
scripts/hn.sh search "LLM" --type story --sort date --period week --limit 5
scripts/hn.sh search "hiring remote" --type comment --period month

Who is Hiring

# Latest "Who is hiring?" job postings
scripts/hn.sh whoishiring
scripts/hn.sh whoishiring --limit 20

Common Workflows

| User asks | Command | |---|---| | "What's trending on HN?" | scripts/hn.sh top | | "Latest Ask HN posts" | scripts/hn.sh ask | | "Search HN for X" | scripts/hn.sh search "X" | | "Show me comments on story Y" | scripts/hn.sh comments Y | | "Who is hiring?" | scripts/hn.sh whoishiring | | "Tell me about HN user Z" | scripts/hn.sh user Z |

Notes

• Story lists use parallel fetching for speed
• HTML in comments/bios is auto-converted to plain text
• Timestamps shown as relative time ("2h ago", "3d ago")
• For API details, see references/api.md