n8n-nodes-hackernewsapi

This is an n8n community node that lets you query the Hacker News Search API (Algolia) inside your n8n workflows.

The HN Search API provides read-only access to Hacker News data, including stories, comments, and polls with powerful full‑text search and filtering.

n8n is a fair-code licensed workflow automation platform.

Installation
Operations
Compatibility
Usage
Resources
Version history
License

Installation

Follow the official community nodes installation guide.

Operations

This node is read‑only and uses the public HN Search API (no credentials required).

Resource: Search

• Search

  • Endpoint: GET /api/v1/search
  • Description: Full‑text search on Hacker News, sorted by relevance, then points, then number of comments.
  • Key parameters:
    • Query: Full‑text search string.
    • Tags: Filter by tags such as story, comment, poll, pollopt, show_hn, ask_hn, front_page, author_:USERNAME, story_:ID.
    • Numeric Filters: Conditions on created_at_i, points, num_comments (for example points>100,num_comments>10).
    • Page, Hits Per Page, Return All, Limit: Control pagination.

• Search by Date

  • Endpoint: GET /api/v1/search_by_date
  • Description: Same as Search, but results are sorted by date (most recent first).
  • Key parameters:
    • Same as Search, typically combined with numericFilters on created_at_i for time‑range queries.

Resource: Item

• Get
  • Endpoint: GET /api/v1/items/:id
  • Description: Retrieve a single item (story, comment, poll, or poll option) by numeric ID, including its nested children.
  • Key parameters:
    • Item ID: Numeric Hacker News item ID.

Compatibility

• n8n version: Built and tested with recent n8n 1.x/2.x versions.
• Node style: Declarative HTTP node using the n8n Nodes API v1.
• Authentication: Not required. The HN Search API is public and this node does not expose any credential options.

If you encounter a version‑specific issue, please open an issue in this repository with your n8n version and error details.

Usage

Add the node

1. Install the package and restart n8n.
2. In the editor, add the Hacker News API node to your workflow.

Example: Search for popular stories

1. Set Resource to Search and Operation to Search.
2. Set Query to a topic, for example n8n or TypeScript.
3. Optionally set:
   • Tags to story to only return stories.
   • Numeric Filters to something like points>100 to only keep higher‑scoring posts.
4. Run the node to get a list of matching stories in the node output.

Example: Fetch a story and its comments

1. Add a Hacker News node with Resource = Item and Operation = Get.
2. Set Item ID to the numeric ID of the story (for example from a previous Search node).
3. Run the node to receive the story plus its nested children (comments) tree.

Resources

• n8n community nodes documentation
• HN Search API documentation
• Build a node | n8n Docs

Version history

• 0.1.0
  • Initial release.
  • Supports:
    • Search (/api/v1/search)
    • Search by date (/api/v1/search_by_date)
    • Get item (/api/v1/items/:id)

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.
See the LICENSE file for details.