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voska/hn-cli · Archived

hn

>- Hacker News CLI for searching stories, reading posts with comments, browsing the front page, and looking up users. Use when you need HN context: tech discussions, Show HN projects, Ask HN threads, startup launches, developer opinions, or trending topics. Free API, no auth required.

Installation

$ npx skills add voska/hn-cli --skill hn
View on skills.sh ↗ GitHub repository ↗

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More details

Agent compatibility

Declared targets from SKILL.md / docs. Unmarked agents are not listed — the skill may still install via the CLI.

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Repository health

Stars 6
License LICENSE
Default branch master
Open issues 1
Status Archived

Package contents

Files included with this skill beyond the listing page.

  • skill md SKILL.md 2,482 B
  • docs SUMMARY.md 292 B

History

  1. First recorded snapshot · 3 installs

SKILL.md

hn -- Hacker News CLI

CLI for searching and reading Hacker News via the Algolia API. Returns compact plaintext by default (token-efficient). No authentication required.

Quick Reference

hn search "query"                    # Search stories (default)
hn search "query" --comments         # Search comments instead
hn search "query" --sort date        # Sort by date (default: relevance)
hn search "query" -n 10              # Limit results
hn search "query" --after 2026-01-01 # Only results after date
hn search "query" --min-points 100   # Minimum points filter

hn front                             # Current front page stories
hn front -n 10                       # Fewer results

hn read ID                           # Read story + top comments
hn read ID --expand                  # All comments expanded

hn user USERNAME                     # User profile and karma

hn status                            # API health check
hn version                           # Version info

Aliases: hn s = hn search, hn f = hn front, hn r = hn read, hn u = hn user.

Workflow

  1. Search or browse front page: hn search "topic" -n 5 or hn front
  2. Note the item ID from the HN URL in results
  3. Read the full story + comments: hn read ID
  4. Expand all comments if needed: hn read ID --expand

Output Format

Compact plaintext by default (token-efficient). Use --json only when writing to files -- never use --json in LLM context.

Search output

1532 results:
1. [523pts 89c] Show HN: I built a tool for X  @username  2h ago
   https://example.com/article
   HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12345

Read output

Full story title, metadata, URL, body text, and threaded comments with author and timestamps. Top 3 levels by default, --expand for all.

User output

@pg  karma:157316
Bug fixer.
https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=pg

Exit Codes

  • 0 success
  • 1 general error
  • 3 empty result (no matches)
  • 5 not found (invalid ID or username)
  • 8 retryable error (network/timeout)

Installation

go install github.com/voska/hn-cli/cmd/hn@latest