Skill

hackernews

Hacker News from your terminal — with a local SQLite store, snapshot history, and agent-native output no other HN tool has.

Verified: 2026-05-13 (printing-press-ingest-2026-05-13+enrich-capability-skill)

When to use hackernews

Choose if

You're an agent that needs to monitor Hacker News for topic trends, front-page diffs, controversial threads, or hiring signals — and you want a local SQLite store that powers since/velocity deltas over multiple syncs. No auth required; both Firebase and Algolia HN APIs are free and public.

Avoid if

You only need a single one-shot fetch of the current top stories — the CLI's value (snapshot deltas, local search, since/velocity) comes from repeated syncs and a persisted store. A simpler curl against the Firebase HN API would be enough for one-off reads. Also avoid for write operations; HN's API is read-only.

Risk Flags

  • LOW scope Read-only — the HN API itself is read-only, so this CLI cannot submit, comment, or vote. Does not create, update, delete, publish, send, or mutate remote resources.
  • LOW data_quality Algolia indexes lag a few minutes behind real-time HN — use stories top for the freshest list. items thread can time out on huge threads; cap with --depth 2 for very large discussions.
  • LOW runtime Several commands (since, velocity) require multiple syncs over time to become meaningful — they detect deltas from local snapshot history, so the first run is a baseline rather than a delta report.
  • LOW rate_limit Exit code 7 indicates rate limiting if it happens, though Firebase and Algolia HN APIs are generous. No published thresholds.

Cost

Type: Free · Free tier: The CLI is MIT-licensed and free. No authentication needed — both the Firebase and Algolia HN APIs are free and public.

Install

Default

npx -y @mvanhorn/printing-press install hackernews

Setup docs →

Estimated time to first success: ~5 min

Dependencies

Minimum runtime: Node.js (for npx) or Go 1.26.3+ (source fallback); pre-built binaries available for macOS / Unix

Distribution

Repository
https://github.com/mvanhorn/printing-press-library
License
MIT