Hacker News MCP server for AI agents

The mcp-hacker-news server provides a seamless bridge between the official Hacker News API and AI tools that support the Model Context Protocol (MCP), such as Claude and Cursor. This allows these AI tools to access and interact with live Hacker News data including posts, comments, and user information through standardized endpoints.

Installation and Setup

Prerequisites

Node.js version 18 or higher
npm or pnpm as a package manager

To verify your Node.js version, run:

node --version

Adding to Claude Desktop or Cursor

Add the MCP Hacker News server to your configuration file:

For Claude Desktop, edit claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mcp-hacker-news": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "mcp-hacker-news"]
    }
  }
}

For Cursor, add the same configuration to your mcp.json file.

Available Resources

The server exposes these fixed resources that correspond to core Hacker News endpoints:

Resource URI	Description
`hackernews://top`	Top stories
`hackernews://new`	Newest stories
`hackernews://best`	Best (algorithmic) stories

These collections match the main list endpoints provided by the Hacker News API.

Available Tools

For more advanced or parameterized queries, the following tools are available:

Story Collections

getTopStories - Fetch top stories with customizable limit
getBestStories - Fetch best stories with customizable limit
getNewStories - Fetch newest stories with customizable limit
getAskHNStories - Fetch "Ask HN" posts
getShowHNStories - Fetch "Show HN" posts
getJobStories - Fetch job postings

Item and User Information

getItem - Retrieve a specific item (story, comment, etc.)
getUser - Retrieve a user profile by username
getComments - Fetch comments for a specific item

Metadata

getMaxItemId - Get the current maximum item ID
getUpdates - Fetch recently updated items and profiles

Usage with MCP Inspector

To test the server with the MCP Inspector:

npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector npx -y mcp-hacker-news

This allows you to verify the server is running correctly and explore the available resources and tools.

Example Queries

When using with Claude or another MCP-compatible AI tool, you can make requests like:

"Show me the current top stories on Hacker News"
"Get comments for Hacker News item #12345"
"Who is user 'dang' on Hacker News?"
"Find recent 'Ask HN' posts about machine learning"

The AI tool will use the appropriate resources and tools provided by the MCP server to fetch the requested information.

How to install this MCP server

For Claude Code

To add this MCP server to Claude Code, run this command in your terminal:

claude mcp add-json "mcp-hacker-news" '{"command":"npx","args":["-y","mcp-hacker-news"]}'

See the official Claude Code MCP documentation for more details.

For Cursor

There are two ways to add an MCP server to Cursor. The most common way is to add the server globally in the ~/.cursor/mcp.json file so that it is available in all of your projects.

If you only need the server in a single project, you can add it to the project instead by creating or adding it to the .cursor/mcp.json file.

Adding an MCP server to Cursor globally

To add a global MCP server go to Cursor Settings > Tools & Integrations and click "New MCP Server".

When you click that button the ~/.cursor/mcp.json file will be opened and you can add your server like this:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "mcp-hacker-news": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": [
                "-y",
                "mcp-hacker-news"
            ]
        }
    }
}

Adding an MCP server to a project

To add an MCP server to a project you can create a new .cursor/mcp.json file or add it to the existing one. This will look exactly the same as the global MCP server example above.

How to use the MCP server

Once the server is installed, you might need to head back to Settings > MCP and click the refresh button.

The Cursor agent will then be able to see the available tools the added MCP server has available and will call them when it needs to.

You can also explicitly ask the agent to use the tool by mentioning the tool name and describing what the function does.

For Claude Desktop

To add this MCP server to Claude Desktop:

1. Find your configuration file:

macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json
Linux: ~/.config/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

2. Add this to your configuration file:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "mcp-hacker-news": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": [
                "-y",
                "mcp-hacker-news"
            ]
        }
    }
}

3. Restart Claude Desktop for the changes to take effect