snqb/hn-research

HN Research Skill - Hacker News Intelligence

Core Purpose

Use Algolia HN API to research what Hacker News is discussing, trending, or thinking about any topic. Get both stories AND comments for full sentiment analysis.

API Endpoints

Search by relevance (popularity):

https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search?query=TOPIC&tags=TAG&hitsPerPage=N

Search by date (recency):

https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search_by_date?query=TOPIC&tags=TAG&hitsPerPage=N

Common Filters

Tags

• story - Stories only
• comment - Comments only (for sentiment)
• show_hn - Show HN posts
• ask_hn - Ask HN posts
• front_page - Front page stories
• Combine with comma: story,front_page

Numeric Filters

# Posts from last 7 days
numericFilters=created_at_i>$(date -v-7d +%s)

# Posts from last 30 days
numericFilters=created_at_i>$(date -v-30d +%s)

# Posts with 100+ points
numericFilters=points>100

# Combine filters (AND)
numericFilters=created_at_i>TIMESTAMP,points>100

Pagination

• hitsPerPage=N - Results per page (max 1000)
• Use page=N for pagination

Research Patterns

Pattern 1: What's Trending Now?

Front page (all topics):

curl -s "https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search?tags=front_page&hitsPerPage=30" | \
  jq -r '.hits[] | "\(.points) pts | \(.title) | \(.url // ("https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=" + (.objectID | tostring)))"' | \
  sort -rn

Recent hot posts (last 7 days, 50+ points):

curl -s "https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search_by_date?tags=story&hitsPerPage=100" | \
  jq -r '.hits[] | select(.points > 50) | "\(.points) pts | \(.created_at) | \(.title) | \(.url // ("https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=" + (.objectID | tostring)))"' | \
  head -30

Pattern 2: Topic Research

What's HN saying about X? (popular):

TOPIC="rust programming"
curl -s "https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search?query=$TOPIC&tags=story&hitsPerPage=20" | \
  jq -r '.hits[] | "\(.points) pts | \(.title) | \(.url // ("https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=" + (.objectID | tostring)))"'

Recent discussions about X:

TOPIC="claude code"
curl -s "https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search_by_date?query=$TOPIC&tags=story&hitsPerPage=30" | \
  jq -r '.hits[0:15] | .[] | "\(.points) pts | \(.created_at) | \(.title) | \(.url // ("https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=" + (.objectID | tostring)))"'

Pattern 3: Sentiment Analysis (Comments)

What are people saying about X?:

TOPIC="cursor IDE"
curl -s "https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search?query=$TOPIC&tags=comment&hitsPerPage=30" | \
  jq -r '.hits[] | select(.points > 3) | "[\(.points) pts] \(.author): \(.comment_text[0:200])..."'

Top comments on a story:

STORY_ID="46420670"
curl -s "https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search?tags=comment,story_$STORY_ID&hitsPerPage=20" | \
  jq -r '.hits[] | "[\(.points) pts] \(.author):\n\(.comment_text)\n---"'

Pattern 4: Show HN / Ask HN

Recent Show HN posts:

curl -s "https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search_by_date?tags=show_hn&hitsPerPage=30" | \
  jq -r '.hits[0:20] | .[] | "\(.points) pts | \(.title) | \(.url // ("https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=" + (.objectID | tostring)))"'

Popular Ask HN (last month):

curl -s "https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search?tags=ask_hn&hitsPerPage=30" | \
  jq -r '.hits[] | select(.points > 20) | "\(.points) pts | \(.title) | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=\(.objectID)"'

Pattern 5: Multi-Topic Research

Compare interest in multiple topics:

for topic in "rust" "go" "zig" "elixir"; do
  echo "=== $topic ==="
  curl -s "https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search_by_date?query=$topic&tags=story&hitsPerPage=10" | \
    jq -r '.hits[0:5] | .[] | select(.points > 30) | "\(.points) pts | \(.title)"'
  echo
done

Pattern 6: User Research

Find posts by user:

USER="patio11"
curl -s "https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search?tags=author_$USER&hitsPerPage=20" | \
  jq -r '.hits[] | "\(.points) pts | \(.title // .comment_text[0:100])"'

Response Format

{
  "hits": [
    {
      "objectID": "46420670",
      "title": "Post title",
      "url": "https://example.com",
      "author": "username",
      "points": 250,
      "num_comments": 42,
      "created_at": "2025-12-29T13:22:59Z",
      "created_at_i": 1735481579,
      "story_text": null,  // for Ask HN
      "comment_text": null // for comments
    }
  ],
  "nbHits": 1000,
  "page": 0,
  "nbPages": 50
}

Useful Filters

Date Helpers

# Last 24 hours
date -v-24H +%s

# Last 7 days
date -v-7d +%s

# Last 30 days
date -v-30d +%s

# Last year
date -v-1y +%s

JQ Helpers

Top posts only:

jq -r '.hits[] | select(.points > 100) | ...'

Sort by points:

jq -r '.hits | sort_by(.points) | reverse | .[] | ...'

Filter by date:

jq -r '.hits[] | select(.created_at_i > 1735000000) | ...'

Extract domains:

jq -r '.hits[] | .url | select(. != null) | sub("https?://([^/]+).*"; "\\1")'

Complete Research Workflow

1. Topic Discovery (What's hot?)

# Front page snapshot
curl -s "https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search?tags=front_page&hitsPerPage=30" | \
  jq -r '.hits[] | "\(.points)|\(.title)|\(.url // ("HN:" + .objectID))"' | \
  sort -rn | column -t -s'|'

2. Deep Dive (Specific topic)

TOPIC="your_topic"

# Stories
echo "=== Stories ==="
curl -s "https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search?query=$TOPIC&tags=story&hitsPerPage=20" | \
  jq -r '.hits[] | "\(.points) pts | \(.title) | \(.url // ("https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=" + .objectID))"'

# Recent discussion
echo -e "\n=== Recent ==="
curl -s "https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search_by_date?query=$TOPIC&tags=story&hitsPerPage=20" | \
  jq -r '.hits[0:10] | .[] | "\(.points) pts | \(.created_at) | \(.title)"'

3. Sentiment Check (Comments)

TOPIC="your_topic"
curl -s "https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search?query=$TOPIC&tags=comment&hitsPerPage=50" | \
  jq -r '.hits[] | select(.points > 2) | "[\(.points)pts] \(.author): \(.comment_text)"' | \
  head -20

4. Trend Analysis (Over time)

TOPIC="AI coding"
for period in "24H" "7d" "30d"; do
  echo "=== Last $period ==="
  TIMESTAMP=$(date -v-$period +%s)
  curl -s "https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search?query=$TOPIC&tags=story&numericFilters=created_at_i>$TIMESTAMP&hitsPerPage=100" | \
    jq -r '.nbHits'
done

When to Use This Skill

Use HN research when you want to:

• Discover trends - What's HN talking about lately?
• Gauge sentiment - What does HN think about X?
• Find alternatives - "X vs Y" discussions
• Learn from discussions - Comment threads on specific topics
• Track topics over time - Is interest growing/fading?
• Find quality content - High-scoring posts on topic
• Research before building - Has this been done? What went wrong?

Output Formatting

Clean list:

jq -r '.hits[] | "\(.points) pts | \(.title) | \(.url // ("https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=" + .objectID))"'

With date:

jq -r '.hits[] | "\(.points) pts | \(.created_at) | \(.title) | \(.url // ("https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=" + .objectID))"'

Markdown links:

jq -r '.hits[] | "- **[\(.title)](\(.url // ("https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=" + .objectID)))** (\(.points) pts)"'

CSV export:

jq -r '.hits[] | [.points, .title, .url, .created_at] | @csv'

Pro Tips

1. Combine searches - Run multiple queries for comprehensive view
2. Check comments - Stories show what's posted, comments show what people think
3. Filter aggressively - HN has noise, use points > N liberally
4. Time matters - Recent search vs popular search give different insights
5. Domain analysis - See which sites HN favors for topic
6. Author stalking - Find experts by tracking their HN activity

Common Queries

"What does HN think about X?"

# Stories + top comments
TOPIC="cursor IDE"
echo "=== Stories ===" && \
curl -s "https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search?query=$TOPIC&tags=story&hitsPerPage=10" | \
  jq -r '.hits[] | "\(.points) pts | \(.title)"'
echo -e "\n=== Sentiment ===" && \
curl -s "https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search?query=$TOPIC&tags=comment&hitsPerPage=30" | \
  jq -r '.hits[] | select(.points > 5) | "[\(.points)] \(.comment_text[0:150])..."' | head -10

"What's trending in X?"

TOPIC="rust"
curl -s "https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search_by_date?query=$TOPIC&tags=story&hitsPerPage=30" | \
  jq -r '.hits[0:15] | .[] | select(.points > 20) | "\(.points) pts | \(.created_at) | \(.title)"'

"Show me good Show HN projects"

curl -s "https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search?tags=show_hn&hitsPerPage=50" | \
  jq -r '.hits[] | select(.points > 100) | "\(.points) pts | \(.title) | \(.url)"'

Error Handling

API returns 400:

• Check numericFilters syntax (no parentheses in bash!)
• Use direct timestamps instead of $(date ...) inline

Empty results:

• Try broader query terms
• Lower points > threshold
• Increase hitsPerPage
• Check spelling

jq parse errors:

• Ensure proper quoting in jq filters
• Test jq expression separately first

Example: Complete Tech Stack Research

#!/bin/bash
# Research multiple technologies, compare HN interest

TOPICS=("rust" "go" "elixir" "zig")

echo "=== HN Tech Stack Comparison (Last 30 days) ==="
for topic in "${TOPICS[@]}"; do
  echo -e "\n## $topic"

  # Story count
  COUNT=$(curl -s "https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search_by_date?query=$topic&tags=story&hitsPerPage=100" | jq '.nbHits')
  echo "Stories: $COUNT"

  # Top posts
  echo "Top posts:"
  curl -s "https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search?query=$topic&tags=story&hitsPerPage=5" | \
    jq -r '.hits[0:3] | .[] | "  • \(.points) pts - \(.title)"'
done

This skill makes you HN-literate. Use it before building, to validate ideas, find prior art, gauge community reception, or just stay informed.