Hacker News Reader MCP Server
A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that fetches Hacker News discussions and article content. Optimized for LLM consumption with compact, token-efficient formatting.
Features
✅ Fetch complete Hacker News discussion threads
✅ Scrape linked article content in markdown format
✅ LLM-optimized output (compact nested replies)
✅ Accepts both HN URLs and item IDs
✅ Handles edge cases (text posts, Ask HN, deleted comments)
✅ Powered by Firecrawl for robust article extraction
Installation
Using uvx from GitHub (Recommended)
uvx --from git+https://github.com/Malayke/hackernews-mcp.git hackernews-mcp
Using uv pip
uv pip install git+https://github.com/Malayke/hackernews-mcp.git
Using pip
pip install git+https://github.com/Malayke/hackernews-mcp.git
Usage
As an MCP Server
Add to your MCP settings configuration (e.g., in Claude Desktop or other MCP clients):
{
"mcpServers": {
"hackernews-mcp": {
"command": "uvx",
"args": [
"--from",
"git+https://github.com/Malayke/hackernews-mcp.git",
"hackernews-mcp"
],
"env": {
"FIRECRAWL_API_KEY": "your_api_key_here"
}
}
}
}
Or if you've installed it with pip/uv pip:
{
"mcpServers": {
"hackernews-mcp": {
"command": "hackernews-mcp",
"env": {
"FIRECRAWL_API_KEY": "your_api_key_here"
}
}
}
}
Environment Variables
Required:
FIRECRAWL_API_KEY- Your Firecrawl API key
Create a .env file:
FIRECRAWL_API_KEY=your_api_key_here
Available Tools
get_hn_content
Fetches Hacker News comments and the linked article content.
Input:
hn_url: HN URL or item ID- Full URL:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46130187 - Just ID:
46130187
- Full URL:
Output: Combined markdown with:
- Article Content - Scraped article in markdown format
- HN Discussion - Formatted comment threads with metadata
Example:
{
"hn_url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46130187"
}
Output Format
The tool returns LLM-optimized content:
# ARTICLE CONTENT
[Article markdown content here...]
---
# HACKER NEWS DISCUSSION
STORY: Article Title
URL: https://example.com/article
AUTHOR: username | POINTS: 123 | TIME: 2 hours ago
TOTAL_COMMENTS: 45
COMMENT #1
COMMENT [author @ time] ID: 123456
Comment text here...
REPLY [author2 @ time] ID: 123457
Reply text here...
REPLY [author3 @ time] ID: 123458
Nested reply text...
COMMENT #2
...
Development
Local Setup
# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/Malayke/hackernews-mcp.git
cd hackernews-mcp
# Install dependencies with uv
uv sync
# Set up environment
echo "FIRECRAWL_API_KEY=your_api_key_here" > .env
# Run the server
uv run server.py
Testing
# Test the MCP server
uv run python test_mcp_server.py
Using in Development Mode
For local development with live changes:
{
"mcpServers": {
"hackernews-mcp": {
"command": "uv",
"args": [
"run",
"--directory",
"/path/to/hackernews-mcp",
"python",
"server.py"
],
"env": {
"FIRECRAWL_API_KEY": "your_api_key_here"
}
}
}
}
Requirements
- Python 3.11+
- Firecrawl API key (for article scraping)
Dependencies
mcp- Model Context Protocol SDKrequests- HTTP requestsbeautifulsoup4- HTML parsingfirecrawl-py- Article content extractionpython-dotenv- Environment variable management
License
MIT License - see LICENSE file for details.
Contributing
Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.
Links
Support
For issues, questions, or contributions, please visit the GitHub repository.