hackernews

Search Hacker News

Searches Hacker News stories, comments, and front-page items via the Algolia HN API. Defaults to story-only results sorted by relevance. The HN Algolia index only exposes created_at_i for numeric filtering, so use numericFilters for date windows (e.g. created_at_i>1700000000). Results come back in the unified Post shape under data.items[], NOT as raw Algolia hits: each item is { post: { id, url, content, author, engagement, flags, published_at }, computed }. post.url is the Hacker News discussion permalink; the submitted article link is at post.content.media_urls; post.engagement.likes is the HN points score and post.engagement.comments is num_comments.

get/hackernews/search

Request

  • Base URL: https://www.socialcrawl.dev/v1
  • URL: https://www.socialcrawl.dev/v1/hackernews/search
  • Auth: API key in header x-api-key

Query parameters

querystring required

Free-text search term.

tagsstring

Algolia tag filter: comma-separated. Common values: "story", "comment", "poll", "show_hn", "ask_hn", "front_page", "author_<username>". Defaults to "story".

numericFiltersstring

Algolia numeric filter expression on created_at_i (the only filterable numeric attribute): e.g. "created_at_i>1700000000". Combine with commas for AND. No filter is applied by default.

hitsPerPageinteger

Hits per page (1-1000). Defaults to 30.

pageinteger

0-indexed page number for pagination. Native upstream cursor param. Send the universal cursor instead: the API maps it to this name for you.

relevance'score' | 'filter'

Optional. Without this param every row already carries computed.relevance against your query, free ({ p, sense, depth, spam }: is this row about what your query means, or a different thing that shares its words?), and nothing is dropped or reordered. score asks for it explicitly and waits for every row; filter also drops the rows that are not about your query, and lists their ids in data.relevance.dropped_ids. Your query is the topic; nothing to configure. A row that could not be judged is never dropped and carries relevance: null. Pagination is unchanged, so a filtered page can hold fewer rows. Free with your query as the topic; with relevant_to it adds 1 credit per started 25 newly judged rows (rows already judged for the same topic are free, and so is a cached page).

relevance_thresholdstring

Optional, only with relevance. The probability (0 to 1) a row must reach to be kept by relevance=filter. Default 0.5. Lower keeps more rows, higher keeps fewer.

relevant_tostring

Optional, only with relevance. Up to 200 characters describing what you mean, used as the topic instead of the query. Use it when the query is ambiguous, for example query=cleopatra with relevant_to=Cleopatra, the IGT slot game.

judgments'on' | 'off'

Optional, on (the default) or off. By default every row gains free SocialCrawl judgments (computed.labels, and computed.relevance on search endpoints), reported in data.labels (mode default) and data.relevance (origin default), each with a status (complete, partial or skipped) and pending: the rows still being judged when the page was sent, which carry null now and are filled on your next call or cached read. Default judgments never add credits, never change an existing field, and never drop or reorder a row. off returns the page exactly as before, with none of those keys. label=none does the same.

dry_run'1'

Optional. When 1, return a cost preview for this labelled or relevance-filtered request without fetching the page or judging any row. data.estimate reports rows_expected, rows_cached, label_credits_min, label_credits_max and base_credits. 0 credits charged.

fit'goal'

Optional. When goal, keep the rows and fields needed for the goal you pass in goal= (plus any that are uncertain, and the first and last), and replace the rest with a stub. data.held_back lists the held ids and a recall id that re-reads the full page from cache at no extra charge. Without this param the page is unchanged.

goalstring

Required by fit=goal. What you are trying to do, in your own words, up to 300 characters.

fit_tokensinteger

Optional, only with fit=goal. Soft cap on how much of the page to keep, in tokens. Uncertain blocks and the first and last block are kept even if they exceed it.

labelstring

Optional CSV of SocialCrawl labels to add to every post. Without this param every page already carries sponsored, intent and niche, free; label= adds the labels you name to them (the defaults keep running). sponsored, intent and niche are free when asked for too; mention, quality, intent with offer=, and injection add 1 credit per started 25 newly judged posts. judgments=off (or label=none) turns the default labels off. sponsored: is the post a paid or gifted promotion (p, 0 to 1), did it carry a disclosure marker such as #ad or 광고 (disclosed), is it likely paid with no marker (undisclosed), and which of the accounts it mentions does it promote (brand, or null). These are signals to review, never a finding. mention (needs brand=): is the post about that brand rather than something that shares its name (about_brand, 0 to 1), how it feels about the brand on five levels (sentiment_level 0 to 4 and sentiment_score 0 to 1, null when the post is not about the brand), is it sarcastic, which aspect it talks about (taste_or_quality, price_or_value, availability_or_delivery, health_or_safety, advertising_or_campaign, customer_service, none), and did the author buy or use it (first_hand). intent: what the author is mainly doing (label: asking_for_recommendation, comparing_options, switching_away, complaining, promoting, news_or_discussion, other, or null when unsure, with confidence), whether they read as a potential buyer rather than a seller (buyer, seller), how pressing the need is (urgency, 0 to 3), and, when you pass offer=, whether your offer would plausibly help them (fits_offer). niche: which of the 33 niches of the published taxonomy sc-niche-v1 the caption belongs to, or personal_no_niche, or other (label, confidence, taxonomy), with label null when the caption is too thin to tell or the pick is unsure. It reads the caption only, not the video. quality: how much checkable detail the caption carries (fact_density 0 to 3), whether it mainly asks for likes, replies, shares, follows or tags (engagement_bait, 0 to 1), whether it is written to provoke anger as a way to get engagement (rage_bait, 0 to 1; about the writing, never the side taken), whether it only repeats someone else's news or view (secondhand, 0 to 1), and what the post is mainly doing (post_aim: inform, opinion, sell, entertain, provoke, other). exclude=engagement_bait drops posts whose engagement_bait is 0.8 or higher. injection flags text that addresses an AI system and tries to direct it (flagged, p); it never drops or rewrites a row. A post that could not be judged carries labels: null. Posts already labelled for anyone are free, and so is a cached page. data.labels reports what was judged and billed.

excludestring

Optional CSV (engagement_bait), only with label=quality. Drops posts whose engagement_bait probability is 0.8 or higher and lists their ids in data.labels.dropped_ids. A post that could not be judged is never dropped.

brandstring

Required by label=mention, ignored otherwise. The brand or product the posts are judged against, up to 300 characters, for example brand=Buldak. Without it label=mention is skipped with the warning label_mention_needs_brand and is not billed.

brand_descriptionstring

Optional, with label=mention. One plain sentence saying what the brand is, for example brand_description=Samyang's spicy instant noodle brand. Use it when the name is also an ordinary word or another company's name.

offerstring

Optional, with label=intent. One or two plain sentences saying what you sell, up to 300 characters, for example offer=A web design agency that builds websites for small businesses. Adds fits_offer to every post; without it fits_offer is null.

label_evidence'1'

Optional, only with label=. When 1, every labelled row also carries computed.labels_evidence.<preset> = { quote, sentence_index }: the sentence in the row that most clearly shows the label, copied verbatim. Absent or null when no single sentence shows it.

sincestring

Only rows published on or after this date: YYYY-MM-DD (midnight UTC) or an ISO 8601 timestamp. Rows older than it are left off each page. This list is not in date order, so the walk does not stop at the date: keep following next_cursor, and each page costs what a page costs even when every row on it is filtered out. A row with no date is kept. published_after, start_date, from_date, publish_time (yesterday, this-week, this-month, last-3-months, last-6-months) and max_age_days are accepted and applied as since.

untilstring

Only rows published on or before this date: YYYY-MM-DD (that whole UTC day is included) or an ISO 8601 timestamp. Newer rows are left off each page and the walk does not stop, so older pages follow. A row with no date is kept. published_before, end_date and to_date are accepted and applied as until.

cursorstring

Universal pagination cursor. Send pagination.next_cursor from the previous response back verbatim: the API maps it to this endpoint's native page (page style). You never construct, decode, or look up a cursor. Omit it for page 1.

Headers

Cache-Controlstring

Send no-cache to bypass the response cache and force a live fetch. Billed at the normal endpoint cost; the fresh result is written back to cache for the next caller. Only the no-cache directive triggers this. See the Response Schema guide for details.

Idempotency-Keystring

Optional UUID that makes the request safely retriable. The key is reserved atomically per account before billing. A concurrent retry receives 409 IDEMPOTENCY_IN_PROGRESS with a Retry-After of 1 second while the original is young, growing to a quarter of the time it has been running (at most 30); a crashed reservation expires after 5 minutes. A replay keeps the cached payload immutable except for billing metadata: credits_used becomes 0, idempotent_replay becomes true, and credits_remaining is refreshed to the current balance. A known current balance appears in both the body and X-Credits-Remaining header; no balance row resolves to 0. On a transient lookup failure, body credits_remaining is null and X-Credits-Remaining is omitted. Completed outcomes expire after 24 hours. If the claim store is unavailable, the request fails closed before billing. GET endpoints do not combine idempotent replay with Server-Sent Events: use Accept: application/json when sending this header. The unsupported key-plus-SSE combination is rejected before billing.

Response

Successful response

successboolean required

Whether the request succeeded

platformstring required

Platform name

endpointstring required

API endpoint path

credits_usedinteger required

Number of credits consumed

credits_remaininginteger nullable required

Current account balance, or null when this response could not establish one. Free cache hits always return null because they do not establish an authoritative post-request balance. An idempotency replay also returns null when its current-balance lookup fails. It is never a fabricated zero, so a zero here means the account really is empty. The authoritative reading is the one on a billed response, which comes straight from the deduction.

request_idstring required

Unique request identifier for support

cachedboolean required

Whether the response was served from cache

idempotent_replayboolean

True only when this response is an idempotency replay

Example response

{
  "success": true,
  "platform": "hackernews",
  "endpoint": "/v1/hackernews/search",
  "credits_used": 1,
  "credits_remaining": 4999,
  "request_id": "req-abc123",
  "idempotent_replay": true,
  "meta": {
    "hint": {
      "code": "search_multi",
      "message": "You searched \"matcha\" on 3 platforms one call at a time; /v1/search/multi returns each platform's own search rows in one call at the same price per platform, and a platform with no rows is not charged.",
      "method": "GET",
      "path": "/v1/search/multi?query=matcha&platforms=instagram,tiktok,youtube"
    }
  },
  "pagination": {
    "next_cursor": "sc.eyJ2IjoyLCJjIjoiMiIsInAiOiJwYWdlIn0",
    "has_more": true,
    "page_size": 30,
    "stopped_at": "known_id"
  }
}

Changes

No recorded changes to this operation across all 1 revision of this API.