A comment export can contain valid stories and comments while leaving part of the thread unvisited. That is not a contradiction. Individual items and traversal coverage are separate units, and a useful research dataset should preserve evidence about both.
The Hacker News stories and comments Actor reads items and bounded feeds through the official Hacker News API. It retains source IDs and parent relationships. It does not fetch the external articles linked from stories, so the dataset describes the discussion source rather than the full linked publication.
Start with one historical item
The installed prefill uses item 8863 as a known historical story. With includeComments disabled, this is a small input for checking the item envelope. Values such as scores and descendant counts remain source snapshots rather than timeless assertions about that story.
{
"itemIds": [
8863
],
"feed": "none",
"includeComments": false,
"maxDepth": 2,
"maxItems": 20,
"keywords": []
}
You can supply up to twenty item IDs. Alternatively, a selected current feed requires an empty itemIds array. The feed modes are bounded current selections, not a historical search index.
Preserve the discussion graph
Keep each item's id, parent, rootId and relative depth. Those fields let a consumer reconstruct relationships after sorting or exporting the dataset. A chronological list of comment text alone loses which statement each reply addressed.
Preserve deleted, dead and source-status evidence where it is returned. Do not replace a missing or deleted item with an empty comment that looks like ordinary content. Source identity is still useful when the requested content is unavailable.
Bound traversal deliberately
When comments are enabled, the runtime traverses child comments breadth-first within the depth and item limits. maxDepth ranges from zero through three, and maxItems can allow up to five hundred complete items. An additional HTTP work cap and working deadline also bound source work.
A free partial notice explains known remaining children or descendants excluded by the selected depth. Complete items already delivered can remain useful while the thread set is incomplete. Retain the notice next to the exported item collection instead of discarding it during a found=true filter.
Understand what keyword filtering means
keywords supports a small list of case-insensitive substrings applied to fetched titles and HTML text. It is not a global search over all past Hacker News content. An empty keyword result therefore describes the items actually checked within the chosen source scope.
If a research question needs a full historical population, identify a source and collection method that can establish that population. A bounded feed snapshot can support exploratory reading, but its convenience should not turn into an unsupported coverage claim.
Count content and notices separately
The result unit is one complete story or comment. Free status rows do not consume the same result allowance, so a dataset can contain more rows than maxItems. Count complete content separately from diagnostic and coverage rows when reporting the export.
For a handoff, provide the input, run identity, complete-item count and remaining-scope notices. That lets another analyst see exactly which discussion evidence was collected and which portions were left outside the export. A clear coverage statement is more useful than calling every nonempty thread dataset complete.
Cost and verification scope
The current FREE-tier result price is $0.0003 for the documented unit: One complete Hacker News story or comment with its metadata. The listing also has a $0.005 start event, charged per GB of Actor memory with a minimum of one event. A free diagnostic row does not refund that start event. Discounted platform tiers have their own rates; inspect your applicable tier before estimating a batch. These are listing prices read on 21 October 2026, not a receipt or a claim about customer spending.
The contract for this draft was checked against installed build 0.1.3 (K4E1G3AtaSlcyGbCU). The input above is an illustrative schema example, not a newly executed run. Current source responses and useful output still need inspection when you choose to run it. No new cloud build or run was made to prepare this article.
Open the Actor and inspect its input and pricing.
AI-assisted draft; publication requires independent technical review.
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