Hacker News Reader MCP Server

# Hacker News Reader MCP Server [](https://www.python.org/downloads/) [](https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT) A [Model Context Protocol](https://modelcontextprotocol.io) (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) ```bash uvx --from git+https://github.com/Malayke/hackernews-mcp.git hackernews-mcp ``` ### Using uv pip ```bash uv pip install git+https://github.com/Malayke/hackernews-mcp.git ``` ### Using pip ```bash 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): ```json { "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: ```json { "mcpServers": { "hackernews-mcp": { "command": "hackernews-mcp", "env": { "FIRECRAWL_API_KEY": "your_api_key_here" } } } } ``` ### Environment Variables Required: - `FIRECRAWL_API_KEY` - Your [Firecrawl](https://firecrawl.dev/) API key Create a `.env` file: ```bash 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` **Output:** Combined markdown with: 1. **Article Content** - Scraped article in markdown format 2. **HN Discussion** - Formatted comment threads with metadata **Example:** ```json { "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 ```bash # 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 ```bash # Test the MCP server uv run python test_mcp_server.py ``` ### Using in Development Mode For local development with live changes: ```json { "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 SDK - `requests` - HTTP requests - `beautifulsoup4` - HTML parsing - `firecrawl-py` - Article content extraction - `python-dotenv` - Environment variable management ## License MIT License - see [LICENSE](LICENSE) file for details. ## Contributing Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request. ## Links - [Model Context Protocol](https://modelcontextprotocol.io) - [Firecrawl](https://firecrawl.dev/) - [Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com) ## Support For issues, questions, or contributions, please visit the [GitHub repository](https://github.com/Malayke/hackernews-mcp).