HackerNews MCP Server

Instructions

Implementation Reference

• src/index.ts:320-328 (handler)

  The asynchronous handler function for the 'get-user' tool. It constructs the HN API endpoint for the given username, fetches the user data using the shared fetchHN helper, and returns both a textual JSON representation and the structured data.

  async ({ username }) => {
    const endpoint = `/users/${username}`;
    const result = await fetchHN(endpoint);
    
    return {
      content: [{ type: 'text', text: JSON.stringify(result, null, 2) }],
      structuredContent: result
    };
  }

• src/index.ts:308-319 (schema)

  The tool configuration including title, description, inputSchema (username: string), and outputSchema (username, about, karma) using Zod validation for the 'get-user' tool.

  {
    title: 'Get HackerNews User Info',
    description: 'Get information about a specific HackerNews user',
    inputSchema: {
      username: z.string().describe('The username to look up')
    },
    outputSchema: {
      username: z.string(),
      about: z.string().optional(),
      karma: z.number()
    }
  },

• src/index.ts:306-329 (registration)

  The complete registration of the 'get-user' tool via server.registerTool, specifying the tool name, schema/configuration, and handler function.

  server.registerTool(
    'get-user',
    {
      title: 'Get HackerNews User Info',
      description: 'Get information about a specific HackerNews user',
      inputSchema: {
        username: z.string().describe('The username to look up')
      },
      outputSchema: {
        username: z.string(),
        about: z.string().optional(),
        karma: z.number()
      }
    },
    async ({ username }) => {
      const endpoint = `/users/${username}`;
      const result = await fetchHN(endpoint);
      
      return {
        content: [{ type: 'text', text: JSON.stringify(result, null, 2) }],
        structuredContent: result
      };
    }
  );

• src/index.ts:11-17 (helper)

  Shared helper function fetchHN used by all HN API tools, including 'get-user', to perform API requests to the HackerNews Algolia API and handle errors.

  async function fetchHN(endpoint: string): Promise<any> {
    const response = await fetch(`${HN_API_BASE}${endpoint}`);
    if (!response.ok) {
      throw new Error(`HN API error: ${response.status} ${response.statusText}`);
    }
    return await response.json();
  }