Fetches the current Hacker News front-page/topstories ranking from the public Firebase API and returns story summaries, unlike search_stories keyword lookup or get_item_thread discussion expansion. 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. Use for "top", "front page", or currently popular stories; use get_new_stories for newest submissions, get_best_stories for HN best ranking, search_stories for keywords, and get_item_thread for a known item ID.

Fetches Hacker News newest stories from the Firebase newstories ranking and returns summaries, unlike get_top_stories which follows front-page rank or search_stories which uses keywords. 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. Use when recency matters more than score or comment activity; use get_top_stories or get_best_stories when popularity signals matter.

Fetches Hacker News beststories ranking from the public Firebase API and returns summaries, unlike get_top_stories front-page rank or get_new_stories chronological rank. 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. Use for high-quality/popular stories beyond the current front page; use search_stories for topic discovery or get_item_thread for comments on one item.

Searches Hacker News stories by keyword via the public Algolia HN API and returns summaries ranked by Algolia relevance/popularity, not exact phrase matching or HN front-page order. 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. Empty queries are rejected, no-match searches return an empty stories array, and this is the right tool for topics or phrases; use story-list tools for rankings and get_item_thread for comments on a known item.

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.