Hacker News

Hacker News is Y Combinator's technology news aggregation and discussion platform. It exposes a public, read-only Firebase-backed API that gives developers real-time access to stories, comments, jobs, polls, and user profiles across the full HN dataset.

Hacker News publishes 4 APIs on the APIs.io network, including Items API, Lists API, Live API, and 1 more. Tagged areas include Developer Community, Technology News, and Y Combinator.

Hacker News’ developer surface includes documentation, developer portal, and 11 more developer resources.

🌐 Visit website 📡 Source on GitHub

30.9/100 thin ▬ flat Agent 20/100 agent aware saas Full breakdown ↓
scored 2026-09-08 · rubric v0.20.0

AccessFreemium

1 APIs

Developer Community Technology News Y Combinator

Kin Score

Kin Score How this is scored →
scored 2026-09-08 · rubric v0.20.0

Composite quality — 30.9/100 · thin

Contract Quality 12.1 / 25

Developer Ergonomics 4.8 / 20

Access Clarity 5.7 / 20

Operational Transparency 2.4 / 13

Contract Governance 0.0 / 12

Discoverability 5.9 / 10

Agent readiness — 20/100 · agent aware

Machine-Readable Contract 18 / 18

Agentic Access Contract 10 / 10

Documented Reversibility 6 / 6

MCP Server 0 / 12

Machine-Readable Auth 0 / 10

Idempotency 9 / 9

Stable Error Semantics 0 / 8

Request/Response Examples 0 / 7

Rate-Limit Signaling 7 / 7

Typed Event Surface 0 / 6

Agent Skills 0 / 5

Well-Known Catalog 0 / 4

Consent & Bot Identity 0 / 3

A2A Agent Card 0 / 8

Dry-Run / Simulate Mode 4 / 4

Delegated User Identity 0 / 6

Protected Resource Metadata 0 / 5

Registration Without a Human 0 / 6

Agentic Commerce Well-Known Document 0 / 5

Create-or-Update Ergonomics does not apply to this provider. The published contracts declare no write operations, and a read-only API cannot create-or-update. The facet is excluded from this provider's denominator entirely — not scored zero. A reference or data API is not deficient for being unable to upsert.

Improve this rating by publishing the missing artifacts — every area above can be raised, and the full rubric is at apis.io/rating/. Every facet and dimension name above is a link: it opens that measurement's own page — what it means, the exact checks that feed it, how the whole catalog distributes on it, and the providers at the top of it. This rating is computed from github.com/api-evangelist/hacker-news: open an issue to ask a question, or submit a pull request to add artifacts. Submit an artifact on GitHub — free → Manage your own listing — the Influence plan, $499/mo →

APIs 4

Individual APIs this provider publishes, each with its own machine-readable definition.

Hacker News Items API

Stories, comments, jobs, Ask HNs, polls, and pollopts.

Hacker News Lists API

Top, new, best, ask, show, and job story lists.

Hacker News Live API

Max item ID and recent updates.

Hacker News Users API

User profiles.

Open Collections 6

Open, tool-agnostic API collections (OpenAPI-derived and Bruno).

API Collection

OPEN COLLECTION

Hacker News Items API

OPEN COLLECTION

Hacker News Items Lists API

OPEN COLLECTION

Hacker News Items Live API

OPEN COLLECTION

Hacker News Items Users API

OPEN COLLECTION

Hacker News API

OPEN COLLECTION

Pricing Plans 1

Published pricing tiers and plan structures.

Hacker News Plans Pricing

3 plans

PLANS

Rate Limits 1

Documented rate limits and quota policies.

Hacker News Rate Limits

5 limits

RATE LIMITS

FinOps 1

Cost, billing, and metering signals for API financial operations.

Hacker News Finops

FINOPS

Security Posture 1

Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals.

Hacker News Domain Security

TLSv1.3 · DMARC

SECURITY

Agentic Access 1

Recommended x-agentic-access execution contracts for AI agents.

Hacker News Agentic Access

10 operations

10 operations · 0 acting

AGENTIC

Resources

Get Started 1

Portal, sign-up, and the first successful call

Portal

Portal

Documentation 2

Reference material describing how the API behaves

Documentation

Documentation

Guidelines

Guidelines

Agent Surfaces 1

MCP servers, agent skills, and machine-readable catalogs

AgenticAccess

AgenticAccess

Access & Security 2

Authentication, authorization, and security posture

DomainSecurity

DomainSecurity

Security

Security

Operate 1

Status, limits, changes, and where to get help

Forums

Forums

Commercial 1

Pricing, plans, and the legal terms of use

TermsOfService

TermsOfService

Company 2

The organization behind the API

Website

Website

About

About

Other 3

Properties that don't map to a standard resource type

PublicAPIsListing

PublicAPIsListing

RSS

RSS

Showcase

Showcase

Source (apis.yml)

aid: hacker-news
name: Hacker News
description: Hacker News is Y Combinator's technology news aggregation and discussion platform. It exposes a public, read-only
  Firebase-backed API that gives developers real-time access to stories, comments, jobs, polls, and user profiles across the
  full HN dataset.
type: Index
deliveryModel:
  model: saas
  open_source: false
  commercial: true
  callable_host: true
  label: Hosted service · you call their endpoint
  confidence: high
  source:
  - openapi
  - pricing
  generated: '2026-08-28'
  method: derived
accessModel:
  pricing: freemium
  onboarding: unknown
  trial: false
  try_now: false
  public: false
  label: Freemium
  confidence: medium
  source:
  - plans
  generated: '2026-07-22'
  method: derived
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/icons/hacker-news.png
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/hacker-news/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
access: 3rd-Party
tags:
- Developer Community
- Technology News
- Y Combinator
created: '2026-03-24'
modified: '2026-05-19'
specificationVersion: '0.23'
apis:
- aid: hacker-news:hacker-news-items-api
  name: Hacker News Items API
  description: Stories, comments, jobs, Ask HNs, polls, and pollopts.
  humanURL: https://github.com/HackerNews/API
  baseURL: https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com
  tags:
  - Item
  tags_raw:
  - Items
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/hacker-news-items-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://github.com/HackerNews/API
  - type: Rules
    url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/hacker-news/refs/heads/main/hacker-news-rules.yml
- aid: hacker-news:hacker-news-lists-api
  name: Hacker News Lists API
  description: Top, new, best, ask, show, and job story lists.
  humanURL: https://github.com/HackerNews/API
  baseURL: https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com
  tags:
  - List
  tags_raw:
  - Lists
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/hacker-news-lists-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://github.com/HackerNews/API
  - type: Rules
    url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/hacker-news/refs/heads/main/hacker-news-rules.yml
- aid: hacker-news:hacker-news-live-api
  name: Hacker News Live API
  description: Max item ID and recent updates.
  humanURL: https://github.com/HackerNews/API
  baseURL: https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com
  tags:
  - Live
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/hacker-news-live-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://github.com/HackerNews/API
  - type: Rules
    url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/hacker-news/refs/heads/main/hacker-news-rules.yml
- aid: hacker-news:hacker-news-users-api
  name: Hacker News Users API
  description: User profiles.
  humanURL: https://github.com/HackerNews/API
  baseURL: https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com
  tags:
  - User
  tags_raw:
  - Users
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/hacker-news-users-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://github.com/HackerNews/API
  - type: Rules
    url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/hacker-news/refs/heads/main/hacker-news-rules.yml
common:
- type: PublicAPIsListing
  url: https://github.com/public-apis/public-apis
- type: AgenticAccess
  url: agentic-access/hacker-news-agentic-access.yml
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/hacker-news-domain-security.yml
- url: https://news.ycombinator.com/
  name: Hacker News Website
  type: Website
- url: https://github.com/HackerNews/API
  name: API Documentation
  type: Documentation
- url: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  name: Community Guidelines
  type: Guidelines
- url: https://news.ycombinator.com/legal
  name: Legal
  type: TermsOfService
- url: https://news.ycombinator.com/security.html
  name: Security Policy
  type: Security
- url: https://news.ycombinator.com/lists
  name: Lists
  type: Portal
- url: https://news.ycombinator.com/rss
  name: RSS Feed
  type: RSS
- url: https://news.ycombinator.com/ask
  name: Ask HN
  type: Forums
- url: https://news.ycombinator.com/show
  name: Show HN
  type: Showcase
- url: https://www.ycombinator.com/
  name: Y Combinator
  type: About
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com

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