Hacker News Has a Free API — Track Tech Trends Before They Go Mainstream

Every major tech trend — from the AI boom to the layoff wave — shows up on Hacker News days before mainstream media picks it up. But scrolling HN manually is inefficient.

Hacker News has a completely free, no-auth Firebase API. Here's how to use it to spot trends programmatically.

The API

Base URL: https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/

Endpoints:

• /topstories.json — top 500 story IDs
• /newstories.json — newest 500 story IDs
• /beststories.json — best 500 story IDs
• /item/{id}.json — any item (story, comment, job)
• /user/{username}.json — user profile

No API key. No rate limit. No auth. Just fetch.

1. Track What's Hot Right Now

import requests

def get_top_stories(limit=10):
    ids = requests.get('https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/topstories.json').json()
    stories = []
    for story_id in ids[:limit]:
        item = requests.get(f'https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/item/{story_id}.json').json()
        stories.append({
            'title': item.get('title'),
            'score': item.get('score', 0),
            'comments': item.get('descendants', 0),
            'url': item.get('url', ''),
            'by': item.get('by')
        })
    return stories

for s in get_top_stories(5):
    print(f"  [{s['score']}pts] {s['title'][:60]}")

2. Find Trending Topics by Keyword

Want to know when HN talks about a specific technology?

def search_hn(keyword, limit=20):
    # Use Algolia HN Search API (also free, no auth)
    resp = requests.get(
        'https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search',
        params={'query': keyword, 'hitsPerPage': limit, 'tags': 'story'}
    ).json()

    for hit in resp['hits']:
        print(f"  [{hit.get('points',0):>4}pts | {hit.get('num_comments',0):>3}c] {hit['title'][:55]}")

    return resp['hits']

# Example: track AI agent mentions
search_hn('AI agent')

3. Analyze Comment Sentiment

def get_story_comments(story_id, depth=0, max_depth=2):
    item = requests.get(f'https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/item/{story_id}.json').json()
    comments = []

    if item.get('text'):
        comments.append({'by': item.get('by'), 'text': item['text'][:200], 'depth': depth})

    if depth < max_depth:
        for kid_id in item.get('kids', [])[:5]:
            comments.extend(get_story_comments(kid_id, depth+1, max_depth))

    return comments

4. Build a Daily Tech Digest

from collections import Counter
import re

def daily_digest():
    ids = requests.get('https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/topstories.json').json()[:30]

    titles = []
    domains = Counter()

    for sid in ids:
        item = requests.get(f'https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/item/{sid}.json').json()
        titles.append(item.get('title', ''))
        url = item.get('url', '')
        if url:
            domain = re.findall(r'https?://(?:www\.)?(.*?)/', url + '/')
            if domain:
                domains[domain[0]] += 1

    # Find trending words
    words = Counter()
    stop = {'the','a','an','is','to','for','and','in','of','on','with','how','why','from','your','you','are'}
    for t in titles:
        for w in t.lower().split():
            if len(w) > 3 and w not in stop:
                words[w] += 1

    print('Top trending words today:')
    for word, count in words.most_common(10):
        print(f'  {word}: {count} mentions')

    print('\nTop domains:')
    for domain, count in domains.most_common(5):
        print(f'  {domain}: {count} stories')

daily_digest()

5. Monitor Job Postings

def get_hiring_posts(limit=5):
    resp = requests.get(
        'https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search',
        params={'query': 'hiring', 'hitsPerPage': limit, 'tags': 'story'}
    ).json()

    for hit in resp['hits']:
        print(f"  {hit['title'][:70]}")
        print(f"    {hit.get('num_comments',0)} comments | {hit.get('created_at','')[:10]}")

get_hiring_posts()

Rate Limits

• Firebase API: No official limit, but be reasonable (1 req/sec)
• Algolia HN API: 10,000 requests/hour — very generous
• Both APIs return JSON, no parsing needed

Use Cases

1. Investors: Spot emerging tech before it peaks
2. Content creators: Find trending topics for articles
3. Job seekers: Monitor who's hiring in real time
4. Product managers: Track competitor mentions
5. Researchers: Analyze tech community sentiment

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I explore free APIs and build tools with them. More projects: GitHub | Writing inquiries: [e-mail]