readhn

AI-native HackerNews MCP Server. Find HN content that matters with explainable quality signals.

What It Does

Discover — Filter stories by keywords, scores, time. Get ranked results with quality signals.

Trust — Find domain experts. See who's talking and why they matter. EigenTrust propagation from seed experts.

Understand — Every result explains WHY. 5 signals: practitioner depth (30%), thread depth (20%), expert involvement (20%), velocity (15%), references (15%).

Related MCP server: Hacker News MCP Server

Quick Start

# Install
pip install readhn

# Auto-configure supported AI agents
readhn setup

readhn setup detects Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Claude Desktop, Cline, Windsurf, and OpenCode config paths and adds the readhn MCP server.

Useful setup flags:

readhn setup --list              # Show detected agents
readhn setup --dry-run           # Preview config changes only
readhn setup --agents "Cursor"  # Configure only specific agents

After setup, your AI agent auto-discovers readhn and uses it when you ask HN questions.

Usage

Ask your AI agent:

• "Show me top HN stories about Rust this week"

• "Find experts who write about databases on HN"

• "What did practitioners say about Kubernetes networking?"

The agent calls readhn tools, gets results with quality signals, and explains why each result matters.

Configuration (Optional)

export HN_KEYWORDS="ai,llm,rust,distributed-systems,databases"  # Default filter keywords
export HN_MIN_SCORE="50"                                         # Minimum story score
export HN_EXPERTS="tptacek,simonw,antirez,ept,jepsen"           # Seed experts for trust
export HN_TIME_HOURS="24"                                        # Time window

How It Works

When you ask HN questions, your AI agent uses these tools:

• discover_stories() — Top stories filtered by keywords/score/time, ranked by quality signals

• search() — Algolia search with explainable ranking

• find_experts() — Find domain experts using EigenTrust on comment graph

• expert_brief() — User profile + activity + trust score

• story_brief() — Story + top comments + signals in one call

• thread_analysis() — Full comment tree with quality signals per comment

Every response includes signals breakdown: why each result was chosen.

License

MIT