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Querying Specific Items by ID
Overview
When working with the Hacker News MCP Server, you'll often need to retrieve specific items such as individual stories, comments, or user profiles. Each item on Hacker News has a unique identifier (ID) that allows you to query it directly. This article explains how to request specific items by their ID and what information you can expect to receive.
Understanding Hacker News IDs
Every piece of content on Hacker News—whether it's a story, comment, poll, or job posting—is assigned a unique numeric identifier. You'll typically encounter these IDs when browsing Hacker News URLs (for example, news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12345678) or when retrieving lists of stories that return arrays of item IDs.
Querying Items by ID
To retrieve a specific item, simply request it from your AI assistant using natural language. You can ask for items in several ways:
- "Get Hacker News item 12345678"
- "Show me the details for story ID 12345678"
- "Retrieve comment 87654321 from Hacker News"
The server will fetch the item and return its complete details, including metadata such as the author, timestamp, score, and content.
What Information You'll Receive
When you query an item by ID, the response structure depends on the item type:
Stories and Submissions
For story items, you'll receive the title, URL (if it's an external link), author username, submission time, current score, and the number of comments. You'll also get the item's ID, which you can use to access its comment thread.
Comments
Comment queries return the comment text, author, timestamp, and score. You'll also receive the parent ID (which could be a story or another comment) and any child comment IDs, allowing you to traverse the entire discussion tree.
User Profiles
While not technically "items," user profiles can be queried by username rather than numeric ID. Profile data includes karma score, account creation date, biographical information (if provided), and lists of the user's submitted stories and comments.
Practical Applications
Querying by ID is particularly useful when you want to:
- Follow up on a specific story you've seen referenced elsewhere
- Deep-dive into a particular comment thread without retrieving the entire story
- Track specific submissions over time to see how scores and discussion evolve
- Build workflows that process items sequentially based on their IDs
This direct access method provides precise control over what data you retrieve, making your interactions with Hacker News more efficient and targeted.
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