MCP Hacker News

Instructions

Implementation Reference

• src/tools.ts:141-183 (handler)

  Handler function that fetches the latest story IDs from Hacker News /newstories endpoint, retrieves up to 'limit' story details using fetchMultipleItems, formats the data including time with formatTime, and returns a structured JSON response.
  execute: async (args: any) => { const limit = Math.min(args.limit || 10, 50); const newIds = await fetchFromAPI<number[]>("/newstories"); if (!newIds) { return { content: [ { type: "text", text: JSON.stringify({ error: "Failed to fetch new stories" }), }, ], }; } const stories = await fetchMultipleItems(newIds, limit); const formattedStories = stories.map((story) => ({ id: story.id, title: story.title, url: story.url, score: story.score, author: story.by, comments: story.descendants || 0, time: story.time ? formatTime(story.time) : "unknown", hnUrl: `https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=${story.id}`, })); return { content: [ { type: "text", text: JSON.stringify( { message: `Latest ${limit} stories from Hacker News`, stories: formattedStories, }, null, 2 ), }, ], }; },
• src/tools.ts:131-140 (schema)

  Input schema defining an optional 'limit' parameter for the number of new stories to retrieve (default 10, maximum 50).
  inputSchema: { type: "object", properties: { limit: { type: "number", description: "Number of stories to return (default: 10, max: 50)", default: 10, }, }, },
• src/tools.ts:128-184 (registration)

  Registration of the 'getNewStories' tool as an object in the exported 'tools' array, which is imported and used by the MCP server in src/index.ts for tools/list and tools/call methods.
  { name: "getNewStories", description: "Get newest stories from Hacker News", inputSchema: { type: "object", properties: { limit: { type: "number", description: "Number of stories to return (default: 10, max: 50)", default: 10, }, }, }, execute: async (args: any) => { const limit = Math.min(args.limit || 10, 50); const newIds = await fetchFromAPI<number[]>("/newstories"); if (!newIds) { return { content: [ { type: "text", text: JSON.stringify({ error: "Failed to fetch new stories" }), }, ], }; } const stories = await fetchMultipleItems(newIds, limit); const formattedStories = stories.map((story) => ({ id: story.id, title: story.title, url: story.url, score: story.score, author: story.by, comments: story.descendants || 0, time: story.time ? formatTime(story.time) : "unknown", hnUrl: `https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=${story.id}`, })); return { content: [ { type: "text", text: JSON.stringify( { message: `Latest ${limit} stories from Hacker News`, stories: formattedStories, }, null, 2 ), }, ], }; }, },
• src/fetch-actions.ts:9-27 (helper)

  Core helper function to fetch data from Hacker News API endpoints (used for /newstories), with caching via getCached/setCache.
  export async function fetchFromAPI<T>(endpoint: string): Promise<T | null> { const cacheKey = endpoint; const cached = getCached<T>(cacheKey); if (cached) return cached; try { const response = await fetch( `https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0${endpoint}.json` ); if (!response.ok) throw new Error(`HTTP ${response.status}`); const data = await response.json(); setCache(cacheKey, data); return data; } catch (error) { console.error(`Error fetching ${endpoint}:`, error); return null; } }
• src/fetch-actions.ts:30-44 (helper)

  Helper to fetch multiple story items in parallel from their IDs, filtering non-null and non-deleted/dead items (used after fetching new story IDs).
  export async function fetchMultipleItems( ids: number[], maxItems = 30 ): Promise<HackerNewsItem[]> { const limitedIds = ids.slice(0, maxItems); const promises = limitedIds.map((id) => fetchFromAPI<HackerNewsItem>(`/item/${id}`) ); const results = await Promise.all(promises); return results.filter( (item): item is HackerNewsItem => item !== null && !item.deleted && !item.dead ); }