Agent skill

Hacker News Search

Searches and monitors Hacker News stories, comments and users through the free Algolia HN Search API, with tag, points and date filters.

MITAuto-check passedProductivity & Automation

Install Hacker News Search

skills CLI

$ npx skills add dylanfeltus/skills --skill hn-search -a claude-code

Project install by default; add -g for ~/.claude/skills/.

GitHub CLI

$ gh skill install dylanfeltus/skills hn-search --agent claude-code

Project scope by default; add --scope user for a personal install. Needs GitHub CLI 2.90.0 or later (public preview).

Manual copy

$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/dylanfeltus/skills.git skills-src && mkdir -p .claude/skills && cp -r skills-src/hn-search .claude/skills/hn-search && rm -rf skills-src

Use ~/.claude/skills/ instead of .claude/skills for a personal install. The folder must contain SKILL.md.

Claude Code skills documentation · loads skills from .claude/skills/

Paste into Claude Code

Install the "hn-search" agent skill from https://github.com/dylanfeltus/skills/tree/main/hn-search into .claude/skills/hn-search/ in this project. Copy the whole folder (SKILL.md and every file beside it), keep the folder name "hn-search", then confirm the skill loads.

Claude Code copies the folder itself, the same result as the manual copy. Check what it changed before you commit it.

$skill-installer

$skill-installer install https://github.com/dylanfeltus/skills/tree/main/hn-search

Type this inside Codex. $skill-installer <name> installs a curated skill from openai/skills. The installer writes to $CODEX_HOME/skills (default ~/.codex/skills). Restart Codex if the skill does not show up.

skills CLI

$ npx skills add dylanfeltus/skills --skill hn-search -a codex

Project install goes to .agents/skills/; add -g for ~/.codex/skills/.

GitHub CLI

$ gh skill install dylanfeltus/skills hn-search --agent codex

Project scope by default (.agents/skills/); add --scope user for a personal install.

Manual copy

$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/dylanfeltus/skills.git skills-src && mkdir -p .agents/skills && cp -r skills-src/hn-search .agents/skills/hn-search && rm -rf skills-src

Use ~/.agents/skills/ instead of .agents/skills for a personal install.

Codex skills documentation · loads skills from .agents/skills/

Paste into Codex

Install the "hn-search" agent skill from https://github.com/dylanfeltus/skills/tree/main/hn-search into .agents/skills/hn-search/ in this project. Copy the whole folder (SKILL.md and every file beside it), keep the folder name "hn-search", then confirm the skill loads.

Codex copies the folder itself, the same result as the manual copy. Check what it changed before you commit it.

skills CLI

$ npx skills add dylanfeltus/skills --skill hn-search -a cursor

Project install goes to .agents/skills/; add -g for ~/.cursor/skills/.

GitHub CLI

$ gh skill install dylanfeltus/skills hn-search --agent cursor

Project scope by default (.agents/skills/); add --scope user for a personal install.

Manual copy

$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/dylanfeltus/skills.git skills-src && mkdir -p .cursor/skills && cp -r skills-src/hn-search .cursor/skills/hn-search && rm -rf skills-src

Use ~/.cursor/skills/ instead of .cursor/skills for a personal install.

Cursor skills documentation · loads skills from .cursor/skills/, .agents/skills/, .claude/skills/, .codex/skills/

Paste into Cursor

Install the "hn-search" agent skill from https://github.com/dylanfeltus/skills/tree/main/hn-search into .cursor/skills/hn-search/ in this project. Copy the whole folder (SKILL.md and every file beside it), keep the folder name "hn-search", then confirm the skill loads.

Cursor copies the folder itself, the same result as the manual copy. Check what it changed before you commit it.

gemini skills install

$ gemini skills install https://github.com/dylanfeltus/skills.git --path hn-search

--scope user (default) or --scope workspace; --path is the subfolder of the repo that holds the skill; --consent skips the security confirmation prompt.

skills CLI

$ npx skills add dylanfeltus/skills --skill hn-search -a gemini-cli

Project install goes to .agents/skills/; add -g for ~/.gemini/skills/.

GitHub CLI

$ gh skill install dylanfeltus/skills hn-search --agent gemini-cli

Project scope by default (.agents/skills/); add --scope user for a personal install.

Manual copy

$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/dylanfeltus/skills.git skills-src && mkdir -p .gemini/skills && cp -r skills-src/hn-search .gemini/skills/hn-search && rm -rf skills-src

Use ~/.gemini/skills/ instead of .gemini/skills for a personal install, then run /skills reload.

Gemini CLI skills documentation · loads skills from .gemini/skills/, .agents/skills/

Paste into Gemini CLI

Install the "hn-search" agent skill from https://github.com/dylanfeltus/skills/tree/main/hn-search into .gemini/skills/hn-search/ in this project. Copy the whole folder (SKILL.md and every file beside it), keep the folder name "hn-search", then confirm the skill loads.

Gemini CLI copies the folder itself, the same result as the manual copy. Check what it changed before you commit it.

GitHub CLI

$ gh skill install dylanfeltus/skills hn-search

Installs for Copilot at project scope by default; add --scope user for a personal install. Preview a skill first with gh skill preview. Needs GitHub CLI 2.90.0 or later (public preview).

skills CLI

$ npx skills add dylanfeltus/skills --skill hn-search -a github-copilot

Project install goes to .agents/skills/; add -g for ~/.copilot/skills/.

Manual copy

$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/dylanfeltus/skills.git skills-src && mkdir -p .github/skills && cp -r skills-src/hn-search .github/skills/hn-search && rm -rf skills-src

Use ~/.copilot/skills/ instead of .github/skills for a personal install. Commit .github/skills so cloud agent and code review can use it.

GitHub Copilot skills documentation · loads skills from .github/skills/, .claude/skills/, .agents/skills/

Paste into GitHub Copilot

Install the "hn-search" agent skill from https://github.com/dylanfeltus/skills/tree/main/hn-search into .github/skills/hn-search/ in this project. Copy the whole folder (SKILL.md and every file beside it), keep the folder name "hn-search", then confirm the skill loads.

GitHub Copilot copies the folder itself, the same result as the manual copy. Check what it changed before you commit it.

skills CLI

$ npx skills add dylanfeltus/skills --skill hn-search -a opencode

OpenCode documents no install command of its own. Project install goes to .agents/skills/; add -g for ~/.config/opencode/skills/.

GitHub CLI

$ gh skill install dylanfeltus/skills hn-search --agent opencode

Project scope by default (.agents/skills/); add --scope user for a personal install.

Manual copy

$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/dylanfeltus/skills.git skills-src && mkdir -p .opencode/skills && cp -r skills-src/hn-search .opencode/skills/hn-search && rm -rf skills-src

Use ~/.config/opencode/skills/ instead of .opencode/skills for a personal install.

OpenCode skills documentation · loads skills from .opencode/skills/, .claude/skills/, .agents/skills/

Paste into OpenCode

Install the "hn-search" agent skill from https://github.com/dylanfeltus/skills/tree/main/hn-search into .opencode/skills/hn-search/ in this project. Copy the whole folder (SKILL.md and every file beside it), keep the folder name "hn-search", then confirm the skill loads.

OpenCode copies the folder itself, the same result as the manual copy. Check what it changed before you commit it.

Facts

Skill name: hn-search
GitHub stars: 179
Token cost: ~1.7k tokens
SKILL.md length: 569 words
Files: 2
Skills in repo: 10
Repo updated: Sep 17, 2026
First seen: Oct 7, 2026
Licence: MIT

At a glance

Searches and monitors Hacker News stories, comments and users through the free Algolia HN Search API, with tag, points and date filters.

Works in 2 steps: Build the URL → Fetch with web_fetch
Finding Hacker News discussions about a company, product or technology
SKILL.md covers When to Use, API Overview, How to Search and Response Format, plus 6 more sections
Reaches hn.algolia.com and news.ycombinator.com

What it does

Hacker News stories, comments and users are searched through the free Algolia HN Search API, which needs no API key. The agent builds a URL against hn.algolia.com, fetches the JSON with a web fetch tool, and chooses between two endpoints: one sorted by relevance for finding topics and one sorted by date for monitoring recent activity.

Queries can be filtered by tag, such as stories, comments, Show HN, Ask HN, front page posts, a given author or the comments on one story, and the tags combine with AND or OR. Numeric filters set minimum points or comment counts and bound results by Unix timestamps, with the agent calculating the current time before subtracting a window such as the last 24 hours. Up to 1000 results per page are allowed, and the stated rate limit is 10,000 requests per hour.

When your agent uses it

Finding Hacker News discussions about a company, product or technology
Seeing what is on the front page or trending on HN
Monitoring HN for new mentions of a topic
Looking up Show HN, Ask HN or Launch HN posts

Example prompts

“What did Hacker News think about the latest Rust release?”
“Find Show HN posts from the last week with more than 100 points.”
“Monitor HN for new mentions of our product name and list the newest stories.”

Requirements

Network access to hn.algolia.com

Workflow steps

2 steps, taken from the step headings in SKILL.md.

Build the URL
Fetch with web_fetch

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit b97a48f. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

Tool permissions
Pre-approves nothing: there is no allowed-tools line, so your agent's usual permission prompts apply.
From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.
Runs code
No scripts in the folder and no shell commands in SKILL.md (its code samples are json).
From the folder's file list and the shell code blocks in SKILL.md.
Network
Hosts in commands or code, which the agent is likely to contact:
- hn.algolia.com
- news.ycombinator.com
From URLs in SKILL.md, links to its own repository left out.
Credentials
Names no API keys, tokens, secrets or passwords.
From names ending in _API_KEY, _TOKEN, _SECRET, _KEY or _PASSWORD in SKILL.md.

Context cost

Hacker News Search loads about 1.7k tokens when it runs. Until then it costs about 56 tokens; SKILL.md has 569 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it: ~56
When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches: ~1.7k

Estimates: characters ÷ 4, the usual rule of thumb; real counts depend on the model's tokenizer. Scripts and assets cost tokens only if the agent reads them.

Safety

Auto-check passed

The automated check found no risky patterns in SKILL.md.

Automated static check — not a guarantee. Review scripts before installing. It scans the text of SKILL.md for risky patterns (piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files, hidden Unicode, destructive commands); files beside SKILL.md are not scanned.

SKILL.md

The full file from dylanfeltus/skills at commit b97a48f, republished under its MIT licence (© dylanfeltus). 569 words, ~1,692 tokens.

Download SKILL.mdSave it as .claude/skills/hn-search/SKILL.md (or your agent's skills folder). This skill also uses 1 other file; get the full folder from GitHub.

name: hn-search
description: Search and monitor Hacker News stories, comments, and users via the free Algolia API. Use when the user asks about HN discussions, wants to find posts about a topic, or monitor HN for mentions. No API key required.

Hacker News Search

Search and monitor Hacker News stories, comments, and users via the Algolia HN Search API. No API key required.

When to Use

User asks about Hacker News discussions on a topic
User wants to find HN posts about a company, product, or technology
User wants to monitor HN for mentions of something
User asks "what's trending on HN" or "what did HN think about X"
User wants to find Show HN / Ask HN / Launch HN posts

API Overview

Base URL: https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1

Two search endpoints:

/search — Relevance-sorted (best for finding specific topics)
/search_by_date — Date-sorted (best for monitoring / recent activity)

Rate Limits: 10,000 requests/hour (generous, no auth needed)

How to Search

Step 1: Build the URL

https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search?query=QUERY&tags=TAG&hitsPerPage=N&numericFilters=FILTERS

Step 2: Fetch with `web_fetch`

Use web_fetch to call the API. Response is JSON.

Parameters

Parameter	Description	Example
`query`	Search terms (URL-encoded)	`query=openai+gpt`
`tags`	Filter by type (see below)	`tags=story`
`hitsPerPage`	Results per page (max 1000)	`hitsPerPage=20`
`page`	Page number (0-indexed)	`page=0`
`numericFilters`	Numeric filters (see below)	`numericFilters=points>100`

Tag Filters

Use tags to filter by content type:

Tag	Description
`story`	Stories only
`comment`	Comments only
`show_hn`	Show HN posts
`ask_hn`	Ask HN posts
`front_page`	Currently on front page
`author_USERNAME`	Posts by a specific user
`story_ID`	Comments on a specific story

Combine tags with commas (AND) or parentheses with commas (OR):

tags=story,show_hn → Show HN stories (AND)
tags=(story,comment) → Stories OR comments

Numeric Filters

Filter	Description
`points>N`	Minimum points/upvotes
`num_comments>N`	Minimum comments
`created_at_i>TIMESTAMP`	After Unix timestamp
`created_at_i<TIMESTAMP`	Before Unix timestamp

Combine with commas: numericFilters=points>100,num_comments>50

Date Ranges

To search within a time window, use Unix timestamps with created_at_i:

Calculate the current Unix timestamp first (e.g., via exec: date +%s), then subtract:

Window	Subtract from now
Last 24 hours	`- 86400`
Last 7 days	`- 604800`
Last 30 days	`- 2592000`

Example: if now is 1705312200, last 7 days = numericFilters=created_at_i>1704707400

Response Format

Each hit contains:

json

{
  "objectID": "12345",
  "title": "Story Title",
  "url": "https://example.com/article",
  "author": "username",
  "points": 150,
  "num_comments": 42,
  "created_at": "2024-01-15T10:30:00Z",
  "created_at_i": 1705312200,
  "story_text": "Text for Ask HN / Show HN (HTML)",
  "_tags": ["story", "author_username", "story_12345"]
}

For comments, hits also include:

json

{
  "comment_text": "The comment body (HTML)",
  "story_id": 12345,
  "story_title": "Parent Story Title",
  "story_url": "https://example.com",
  "parent_id": 12344
}

The response wrapper includes:

json

{
  "hits": [...],
  "nbHits": 1000,
  "page": 0,
  "nbPages": 50,
  "hitsPerPage": 20
}

Constructing HN Links

Story: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id={objectID}
Comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id={objectID}
User: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id={author}

Step-by-Step Instructions

Searching for Stories on a Topic

URL-encode the query
Fetch: https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search?query=YOUR_QUERY&tags=story&hitsPerPage=10
Parse the JSON response
For each hit, present: title, points, num_comments, author, date, HN link, and original URL

Show full SKILL.md (212 more words)Show less

Calculate Unix timestamp for your time window (e.g., 7 days ago)
Fetch: https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search?query=YOUR_QUERY&tags=story&numericFilters=points>50,created_at_i>TIMESTAMP&hitsPerPage=10
Sort results by points or comments for "trending"

Getting Comments on a Story

Get the story's objectID from a search
Fetch: https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search?tags=comment,story_STORYID&hitsPerPage=20
Present comment_text, author, points for each

Monitoring a Topic (Show Recent Mentions)

Use /search_by_date instead of /search
Fetch: https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search_by_date?query=YOUR_QUERY&tags=(story,comment)&hitsPerPage=20
Results are newest-first — useful for "what's new about X on HN"

Finding a User's Posts

Fetch: https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search?tags=author_USERNAME,story&hitsPerPage=20
For their comments: tags=author_USERNAME,comment

Output Format

Present results as a clean list:

### HN Results for "query" (N total)

1. **Story Title** (150 pts, 42 comments)
   By username · Jan 15, 2024
   🔗 https://example.com/article
   💬 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12345

2. ...

For comments:

### HN Comments on "Story Title"

1. **username** (12 pts) · Jan 15, 2024
   > First ~200 chars of the comment text...
   💬 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12345

Error Handling

Empty results: Tell the user no results were found. Suggest broadening the query or removing filters.
API error / timeout: Retry once. If still failing, inform the user the HN search API may be temporarily down.
Rate limited (429): Unlikely at 10k/hr, but if hit, wait 60 seconds and retry.
Malformed response: Check the URL construction — common issues are unencoded special characters in the query.

Examples

Example 1: "What's HN saying about Rust?"

Fetch: https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search?query=rust+programming&tags=story&hitsPerPage=5&numericFilters=points>50

Example 2: "Find Show HN posts about AI agents from the last month"

# Calculate timestamp for 30 days ago, then:
Fetch: https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search_by_date?query=ai+agents&tags=show_hn&numericFilters=created_at_i>TIMESTAMP&hitsPerPage=10

Example 3: "What has pg posted recently?"

Fetch: https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search_by_date?tags=author_pg&hitsPerPage=10

Data Source

Algolia HN Search API — Free, no authentication required. Indexes all public Hacker News content in near real-time.

Files

SKILL.md and 1 other file in hn-search of dylanfeltus/skills.

SKILL.md
README.md

Open the folder on GitHubat commit b97a48f

Compare with similar skills

Hacker News Search next to the 5 skills that share the most tags, products or categories with it. Stars are the repository's; “used in” counts other GitHub owners with a copy.

Hacker News Search compared with similar skills
Skill	Stars	Used in	Tokens	Auto-check	Licence	Repo updated
Hacker News Search this skilldylanfeltus/skills	179	—	~1.7k	Automated safety check: Pass	MIT	23 days ago
9Router Web Searchdecolua/9router	31k	—	~1k	Automated safety check: Pass	MIT	2 days ago
YouTube Channel ToolsZeroPointRepo/youtube-skills	1k	1 repos	~3.3k	Automated safety check: Pass	MIT	4 days ago
Brave Local Place Descriptionsbrave/brave-search-skills	183	—	~1k	Automated safety check: Pass	MIT	17 days ago
Brave Local Place Searchbrave/brave-search-skills	183	—	~3.4k	Automated safety check: Pass	MIT	17 days ago
Hacker News Summarizerykdojo/claude-code-tips	10k	—	~942	Automated safety check: Pass	Custom licence	15 days ago

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Questions about Hacker News Search

What does Hacker News Search do?

Searches and monitors Hacker News stories, comments and users through the free Algolia HN Search API, with tag, points and date filters. Hacker News stories, comments and users are searched through the free Algolia HN Search API, which needs no API key.com, fetches the JSON with a web fetch tool, and chooses between two endpoints: one sorted by relevance for finding topics and one sorted by date for monitoring recent activity.

When should I use Hacker News Search?

Hacker News Search fits situations like: finding Hacker News discussions about a company, product or technology; seeing what is on the front page or trending on HN; monitoring HN for new mentions of a topic; looking up Show HN, Ask HN or Launch HN posts.

How do I install Hacker News Search in Claude Code?

Run `npx skills add dylanfeltus/skills --skill hn-search -a claude-code`. Or copy the skill folder (hn-search in dylanfeltus/skills) into .claude/skills/hn-search in your project. Claude Code loads it when a task matches its description.

How do I install Hacker News Search in Codex?

Run `npx skills add dylanfeltus/skills --skill hn-search -a codex`. Or copy the skill folder (hn-search in dylanfeltus/skills) into .agents/skills/hn-search in your project. Codex loads it when a task matches its description.

Can I use Hacker News Search in Cursor, Gemini CLI or GitHub Copilot?

Cursor, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot and OpenCode also load SKILL.md folders. With the skills CLI, run `npx skills add dylanfeltus/skills --skill hn-search -a cursor` (or -a gemini-cli, github-copilot or opencode for the others). To copy it by hand, put the folder in .cursor/skills/hn-search, .gemini/skills/hn-search, .github/skills/hn-search and .opencode/skills/hn-search in your project.

What does Hacker News Search need to run?

SKILL.md names no scripts, command-line tools or credentials: Hacker News Search is instructions for the agent only. Our summary lists: Network access to hn.algolia.com.

Does Hacker News Search access the network?

SKILL.md names 2 domains. In commands or code: hn.algolia.com and news.ycombinator.com; the agent is likely to contact these when it follows the instructions. This is read from the text; nothing was executed.

Is Hacker News Search safe to install?

Our automated static check of SKILL.md found no risky patterns, such as piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files or hidden Unicode. It is not a guarantee. Review the folder before installing.

What licence does Hacker News Search use?

Hacker News Search is published under the MIT licence (the repository's licence). It allows redistribution, so the full SKILL.md is shown on this page.

How many tokens does Hacker News Search use?

About 1.7k tokens (SKILL.md is roughly 6.8k characters). Agents keep only the skill's name and description in context until a task matches; then they load SKILL.md in full.

What are the alternatives to Hacker News Search?

Skills that share tags, products or a category with Hacker News Search: 9Router Web Search (decolua/9router, 31k stars), YouTube Channel Tools (ZeroPointRepo/youtube-skills, 1k stars), Brave Local Place Descriptions (brave/brave-search-skills, 183 stars) and Brave Local Place Search (brave/brave-search-skills, 183 stars). The comparison table on this page puts their stars, adoption, token cost, safety result and licence side by side.

Who maintains Hacker News Search?

dylanfeltus (a GitHub user) maintains it in dylanfeltus/skills, which has 179 GitHub stars. The repository holds 10 skills in this directory. The repository was last updated on September 17, 2026.

Source: dylanfeltus/skills on GitHub. Facts on this page come from the repository at the commit we read; the author's words are quoted as theirs.

Install Hacker News Search

Facts

At a glance

What it does

When your agent uses it

Example prompts

Requirements

Workflow steps

What it can do on your machine

Tool permissions

Runs code

Network

Credentials

Context cost

Safety

SKILL.md

Hacker News Search

When to Use

API Overview

How to Search

Step 1: Build the URL

Step 2: Fetch with web_fetch

Parameters

Tag Filters

Numeric Filters

Date Ranges

Response Format

Constructing HN Links

Step-by-Step Instructions

Searching for Stories on a Topic

Finding Recent/Trending Discussions

Getting Comments on a Story

Monitoring a Topic (Show Recent Mentions)

Finding a User's Posts

Output Format

Error Handling

Examples

Example 1: "What's HN saying about Rust?"

Example 2: "Find Show HN posts about AI agents from the last month"

Example 3: "What has pg posted recently?"

Data Source

Files

Compare with similar skills

Similar skills

More from dylanfeltus/skills

Related

Questions about Hacker News Search

Step 2: Fetch with `web_fetch`