Hacker News API

Development & Data · Hacker News API results · public source

Official docs

Current public response

Load a fresh response from Hacker News API; no search term is required.

What the response contains

Fields worth checking

Development & Data
Hacker News API results
public source

The topstories list contains IDs only

/v0/topstories.json returns a sequence of numeric identifiers in Hacker News display order. Documentation says it can contain up to 500 top stories and can include jobs. An ID does not provide title, link, author, score, or comments until you request its corresponding item.

Use each number in /v0/item/{id}.json to open a story.
Do not treat response position as a permanent ranking.
Filter type when an interface should not show jobs.

The item explains what is displayed

A story can include id, type, by, time, title, url, score, descendants, and kids. type distinguishes story, job, comment, poll, and pollopt. time is Unix time; title and text can contain HTML; descendants is a story or poll’s total comment count, and kids lists its direct comments in display order.

Convert time before showing a human-readable date.
Sanitize source HTML in title and text before rendering it.
Use url as an external destination when it exists; not every story has one.

Popularity does not verify an external source

The API makes public Hacker News data available in near real time. score is the community score and changes over time; it does not confirm the accuracy of a linked page. Open the original URL, read the discussion, and distinguish opinion, announcement, demonstration, and reporting before repeating a claim as fact.

Request an item again when position or score matters.
Do not use comment count as a measure of technical quality.
Name Hacker News and the original page when forwarding a story.