Search Hacker News stories, comments, and polls via x402 micropayment for $0.005 per call.
What it does
The Scout Hacker News endpoint (`/scout/hn`) provides programmatic search over Hacker News content powered by the Algolia API. It returns story titles, URLs, point counts, comment counts, authors, and dates. You can filter results by content type (story, comment, poll, show_hn, ask_hn) and sort by relevance or date, with up to 50 results per request. The endpoint costs $0.005 per call (paid in USDC on Base via the x402 protocol).
This endpoint is part of the larger Scout Multi-source Intelligence API, which covers 19+ platforms including GitHub, Reddit, Stack Overflow, arXiv, npm, PyPI, X/Twitter, YouTube, Product Hunt, and more. Each source has its own dedicated endpoint, and there are also aggregated report endpoints that query multiple sources in parallel. The HN endpoint is one of the cheapest individual source endpoints in the suite.
Payment is handled via x402 — the endpoint returns a 402 challenge to unauthenticated callers, and payment can be made directly with a wallet, through the hosted broker service (API key based, no wallet needed), via the `x402-pay` Python SDK, or through the Scout MCP server. The OpenAPI spec is comprehensive, covering all parameters and response codes.
Capabilities
Use cases
- —AI agents monitoring tech community discussions on specific topics
- —Automated trend detection by searching HN for emerging keywords
- —Research tools aggregating developer sentiment from HN comments
- —Building dashboards that track HN engagement for specific projects
- —Content curation pipelines that surface high-signal HN stories
Fit
Best for
- —Agents that need real-time Hacker News search without managing API keys for Algolia directly
- —Micropayment-based access where you pay only per query with no subscription
- —Multi-source intelligence workflows that combine HN data with other Scout endpoints
Not for
- —Bulk historical HN data dumps — limited to 50 results per call
- —Real-time streaming of new HN submissions (this is a search endpoint, not a firehose)
- —Free-tier usage — every call requires a $0.005 USDC payment
Quick start
# Using the x402-pay Python SDK (no wallet setup needed)
pip install x402-pay
import x402_pay
response = x402_pay.get('https://scout.hugen.tokyo/scout/hn?q=AI+agents&per_page=5')
print(response.json())Example
Request
{
"url": "https://scout.hugen.tokyo/scout/hn?q=AI+agents&sort=relevance&per_page=5&tag=story",
"method": "GET"
}Response
{
"count": 1,
"query": "AI agents",
"source": "hackernews",
"results": [
{
"url": "https://example.com",
"title": "Show HN: AI Agent Framework",
"points": 142,
"comments": 38
}
]
}Endpoint
Quality
Full OpenAPI schema with all parameters documented, live 402 challenge captured confirming the endpoint is operational, and a sample response included in the challenge. Docs pages (/docs, /pricing, /README) all 404, so there is no supplementary documentation beyond the OpenAPI spec and the challenge payload. Response schema is only partially shown via the sample.
Warnings
- —No dedicated documentation pages found — /docs, /pricing, /README all return 404
- —Response schema is inferred from the sample in the 402 challenge; full response fields are not formally documented
- —The 402 challenge advertises $0.01 but the OpenAPI spec says $0.005 — there is a price discrepancy
Citations
- —Endpoint searches Hacker News stories, comments, and polls via Algoliahttps://scout.hugen.tokyo
- —Supports filtering by content type (story, comment, poll, show_hn, ask_hn) and sorting by relevance or datehttps://scout.hugen.tokyo
- —OpenAPI spec lists price as $0.005 per callhttps://scout.hugen.tokyo
- —402 challenge sample shows $0.01 USDC on Basehttps://scout.hugen.tokyo
- —Part of Scout Multi-source Intelligence API covering 19+ platformshttps://scout.hugen.tokyo
- —Alternative access via broker, MCP server, or x402-pay Python SDKhttps://scout.hugen.tokyo