Get item thread
get_item_threadRetrieve a Hacker News item by ID and expand its nested comment tree, providing full discussion context for any valid item.
Instructions
Fetches one Hacker News item by numeric itemId and expands its nested comment tree, unlike story-list tools or search_stories which return lists without discussion context. Read-only, idempotent, and unauthenticated; the client caches GET responses in memory for 60 seconds and throttles upstream HN/Algolia requests to 10 requests/second with a burst of 20, while upstream HTTP, rate-limit, or response-shape failures are returned as tool errors. Missing root items throw a 404-style error, deleted/dead descendants are skipped, and broad branches are truncated by maxChildren; use only when you already have an item ID.
Input Schema
TableJSON Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| depth | No | Maximum reply nesting depth to expand. Defaults to 2; valid range is 1 to 6. | |
| itemId | Yes | Hacker News item ID to fetch. Must be a nonnegative integer from HN item URLs or prior tool results. | |
| maxChildren | No | Maximum number of child comments fetched per item at each depth. Defaults to 20; valid range is 1 to 50. |
Output Schema
TableJSON Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| thread | Yes |