Hacker News MCP Server

A FastMCP server that provides access to Hacker News data for Poke integration.

🚀 Features

• get_top_stories: Fetch top stories from Hacker News

• get_story: Get details of a specific story by ID

• get_new_stories: Fetch newest stories

• search_stories: Search for stories using Algolia API

Related MCP server: HN Pulse

🛠️ Local Development

# Install dependencies
pip install -r requirements.txt

# Run the server
python src/server.py

🚢 Deployment

Deploy to Render

Steps:

1. Click the "Deploy to Render" button above or go to render.com

2. Connect your GitHub account to Render (if you haven't already)

3. Create a new Web Service:

   • Connect this repository

   • Name: hackernews-mcp

   • Environment: Python 3

   • Plan: Free

   • Build Command: pip install -r requirements.txt

   • Start Command: python src/server.py

4. Deploy! (No additional environment variables needed - uses public Hacker News API)

Note: On Render's free tier, services go idle after ~15 minutes of inactivity and may require a manual "Deploy" to wake or to pick up the latest commit. Unlike Vercel, pushes do not auto-deploy by default.

Your server will be available at https://hackernews-mcp.onrender.com/mcp

🎯 Poke Integration

1. Go to poke.com/settings/connections

2. Add the MCP URL: https://hackernews-mcp.onrender.com/mcp

3. Give it a name like "Hacker News"

4. Try: "Can you use the Hacker News MCP to get top stories?"

References

• Based on the Interaction MCP server template: MCP Server Template

• Discovered via Interaction’s HackMIT challenge: Interaction HackMIT Challenge

🔧 Available Tools

• get_top_stories(limit=10): Get top stories (max 30)

• get_story(story_id): Get specific story details

• get_new_stories(limit=10): Get newest stories (max 30)

• search_stories(query, limit=10): Search stories (max 20)

📝 Example Usage

# Get top 5 stories
get_top_stories(limit=5)

# Get story details
get_story(story_id=12345)

# Search for Python stories
search_stories(query="python", limit=5)