← All site APIs · updated 2026-09-21
Hacker News API
news.ycombinator.com · 1 credit when fetched live, 0 from the shared store · needs an API key
Front page stories and item threads as clean JSON — no HTML parsing on your side.
GET /v1/structured/hackernews/front
Front page. Stories on the front page, in rank order.
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
page | number | no | Page number (1-based). e.g. 1 |
max_age | number | no | Accept a stored copy up to this many seconds old (credits: 0). Defaults to 600 s (10 min); 0 forces a fresh fetch. |
curl "https://api.webscrapingapi.dev/v1/structured/hackernews/front?page=1" -H "X-API-Key: wsa_your_key"{
"site": "hackernews",
"action": "front",
"data": {
"count": 30,
"stories": [
{
"rank": 1,
"title": "Samsung is expected to more than double …",
"points": 125,
"commentCount": 84
},
// 29 more
]
},
"source": "live", "age": 0, "credits": 1
}Returns data shaped like: stories[] { id, rank, title, url, site, points, author, commentCount, age }. The envelope also carries site, action, params, source (live or cache), age in seconds, fetchedAt, elapsedMs and credits.
Caching. Results are stored and shared for 10 min by default. A response served from the store costs 0 credits and says "source": "cache"; pass max_age=0 to force a fresh fetch, or a smaller max_age when you need something newer.
GET /v1/structured/hackernews/item
Item thread. A story with its comment thread (flattened, with depth).
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
id | number | yes | Hacker News item id. e.g. 1 |
max_age | number | no | Accept a stored copy up to this many seconds old (credits: 0). Defaults to 600 s (10 min); 0 forces a fresh fetch. |
curl "https://api.webscrapingapi.dev/v1/structured/hackernews/item?id=1" -H "X-API-Key: wsa_your_key"{
"site": "hackernews",
"action": "item",
"data": {
"id": 1,
"title": "Y Combinator",
"commentsParsed": 3,
"comments": [ { "id": 15, "author": "sama", "depth": 0, "text": "…" } ]
},
"source": "live", "age": 0, "credits": 1
}Returns data shaped like: { id, title, url, points, author, age, comments[] { id, author, age, depth, text } }. The envelope also carries site, action, params, source (live or cache), age in seconds, fetchedAt, elapsedMs and credits.
Caching. Results are stored and shared for 10 min by default. A response served from the store costs 0 credits and says "source": "cache"; pass max_age=0 to force a fresh fetch, or a smaller max_age when you need something newer.
Layout changes on news.ycombinator.com can break parsing; the API then returns SITE_PARSE_FAILED. If you see it, tell us on the board and it will be fixed.