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Hacker News API 1 credit/request

Hacker News Item

GET https://scrappa.co/api/hackernews/item?id=50068946&comments=1

Returns one Hacker News item: id, title, url, score, author, ISO 8601 creation time, descendant count, kid ids, type, optional text with a plain-text variant, and parent id, deleted and dead when set. With comments=true (the default) the response also carries the full nested comment tree from the Algolia items document, each comment with author, text, plain-text variant, creation time, parent id and nested children. An unknown id answers 404 and is never charged.

Hacker News Item 1 credit/request

Endpoint

Request preview
GET
https://scrappa.co/api/hackernews/item?id=50068946&comments=1
Auth header
x-api-key
Cost
1 credit/request
id = 50068946
Response preview
200 OK
{
    "success": true,
    "data": {
        "id": 50068946,
        "title": "Were Software Engineers blue-collar workers all along?",
        "url": "https://ptrbrynt.com/posts/were-we-blue-collar-workers-all-along",
        "score": 75,
        "by": "ilreb",
        "created_at": "2026-10-13T09:25:10Z",
        "descendants": 157,
        "kids": [
            50069266,
            50069036,
            50069053,
...

Parameters

Start with the required fields, then add optional filters only when your use case needs them.

Runnable path

1 required parameter needed before sending a request.

1 optional filter available.

id integer Required

Hacker News item id, e.g. 50068946.

Example value 50068946
comments boolean Optional

Include the full nested comment tree. Defaults to true. When false, the comments field is omitted.

Example value true

Request Examples

PHP
<?php

$curl = curl_init();

curl_setopt_array($curl, [
    CURLOPT_URL => "https://scrappa.co/api/hackernews/item?id=50068946&comments=1",
    CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,
    CURLOPT_ENCODING => "",
    CURLOPT_MAXREDIRS => 10,
    CURLOPT_TIMEOUT => 30,
    CURLOPT_HTTP_VERSION => CURL_HTTP_VERSION_1_1,
    CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST => "GET",
    CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER => [
        "x-api-key: YOUR_API_KEY_HERE"
    ],
]);

$response = curl_exec($curl);
$err = curl_error($curl);

curl_close($curl);

if ($err) {
    echo "cURL Error #:" . $err;
} else {
    echo $response;
}
PHP
<?php

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Http;

$response = Http::timeout(30)
    ->withHeaders(['x-api-key' => 'YOUR_API_KEY_HERE'])
    ->get('https://scrappa.co/api/hackernews/item?id=50068946&comments=1');

if ($response->successful()) {
    echo $response->body();
} else {
    echo "Error: " . $response->status();
}
JavaScript
const options = {
    method: 'GET',
    headers: {
        'x-api-key': 'YOUR_API_KEY_HERE'
    }
};

fetch('https://scrappa.co/api/hackernews/item?id=50068946&comments=1', options)
    .then(response => {
        if (!response.ok) {
            throw new Error(`HTTP error! status: ${response.status}`);
        }
        return response.text();
    })
    .then(data => console.log(data))
    .catch(error => console.error('Error:', error));
JavaScript
const axios = require('axios');

const options = {
    method: 'GET',
    url: 'https://scrappa.co/api/hackernews/item?id=50068946&comments=1',
    headers: {
        x-api-key: 'YOUR_API_KEY_HERE',
    }
};

try {
    const response = await axios(options);
    console.log(response.data);
} catch (error) {
    console.error('Error:', error.message);
}
Ruby
require 'net/http'
require 'uri'

uri = URI.parse("https://scrappa.co/api/hackernews/item?id=50068946&comments=1")
http = Net::HTTP.new(uri.host, uri.port)
http.use_ssl = uri.scheme == 'https'

request = Net::HTTP::Get.new(uri.request_uri)
request['x-api-key'] = 'YOUR_API_KEY_HERE'

begin
    response = http.request(request)
    puts response.body
rescue => e
    puts "Error: #{e.message}"
end
Python
import http.client
import json

conn = http.client.HTTPSConnection("scrappa.co")

headers = {
    'x-api-key': 'YOUR_API_KEY_HERE',
}

try:
    conn.request("GET", "/api/hackernews/item?id=50068946&comments=1", headers=headers)
    res = conn.getresponse()
    data = res.read()
    print(data.decode("utf-8"))
except Exception as e:
    print(f"Error: {e}")
finally:
    conn.close()
Python
import requests

headers = {
    'x-api-key': 'YOUR_API_KEY_HERE',
}

try:
    response = requests.get('https://scrappa.co/api/hackernews/item?id=50068946&comments=1', headers=headers)
    response.raise_for_status()
    print(response.text)
except requests.exceptions.RequestException as e:
    print(f"Error: {e}")
Java
import okhttp3.OkHttpClient;
import okhttp3.Request;
import okhttp3.Response;
import java.io.IOException;

public class ApiExample {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        OkHttpClient client = new OkHttpClient();

        Request request = new Request.Builder()
            .url("https://scrappa.co/api/hackernews/item?id=50068946&comments=1")
        .addHeader("x-api-key", "YOUR_API_KEY_HERE")
            .build();

        try (Response response = client.newCall(request).execute()) {
            if (response.isSuccessful()) {
                System.out.println(response.body().string());
            } else {
                System.out.println("Error: " + response.code());
            }
        } catch (IOException e) {
            System.out.println("Error: " + e.getMessage());
        }
    }
}
Go
package main

import (
    "fmt"
    "net/http"
    "io/ioutil"
)

func main() {
    client := &http.Client{}
    req, err := http.NewRequest("GET", "https://scrappa.co/api/hackernews/item?id=50068946&comments=1", nil)
    if err != nil {
        fmt.Println("Error creating request:", err)
        return
    }
    req.Header.Set("x-api-key", "YOUR_API_KEY_HERE")

    resp, err := client.Do(req)
    if err != nil {
        fmt.Println("Error making request:", err)
        return
    }
    defer resp.Body.Close()

    body, err := ioutil.ReadAll(resp.Body)
    if err != nil {
        fmt.Println("Error reading response:", err)
        return
    }

    fmt.Println(string(body))
}
Terminal
#!/bin/bash

curl -X GET \
    -H "x-api-key: YOUR_API_KEY_HERE" \
    "https://scrappa.co/api/hackernews/item?id=50068946&comments=1"
C#
using System;
using System.Net.Http;
using System.Threading.Tasks;

class Program
{
    static async Task Main()
    {
        using var client = new HttpClient();
        client.DefaultRequestHeaders.Add("x-api-key", "YOUR_API_KEY_HERE");

        try
        {
            var response = await client.SendAsync(new HttpRequestMessage(HttpMethod.Get, "https://scrappa.co/api/hackernews/item?id=50068946&comments=1"));
            var content = await response.Content.ReadAsStringAsync();
            Console.WriteLine(content);
        }
        catch (Exception ex)
        {
            Console.WriteLine($"Error: {ex.Message}");
        }
    }
}
TypeScript
import axios from 'axios';

async function run(): Promise<void> {
    try {
        const response = await axios({
            method: 'GET',
            url: 'https://scrappa.co/api/hackernews/item?id=50068946&comments=1',
            headers: {
        'x-api-key': 'YOUR_API_KEY_HERE',
            },
        });

        console.log(response.data);
    } catch (error) {
        console.error('Error:', error);
    }
}

void run();
RUST
use reqwest::Client;

#[tokio::main]
async fn main() -> Result<(), Box<dyn std::error::Error>> {
    let client = Client::new();

    let response = client
        .get("https://scrappa.co/api/hackernews/item?id=50068946&comments=1")
        .header("x-api-key", "YOUR_API_KEY_HERE")
        .send()
        .await?;

    println!("{}", response.text().await?);

    Ok(())
}

Response Schema

Example response fields are illustrative; inspect the JSON before integrating.

Example response fields

Scan these fields before integrating.

success data meta
JSON Response
200 OK
{
    "success": true,
    "data": {
        "id": 50068946,
        "title": "Were Software Engineers blue-collar workers all along?",
        "url": "https://ptrbrynt.com/posts/were-we-blue-collar-workers-all-along",
        "score": 75,
        "by": "ilreb",
        "created_at": "2026-10-13T09:25:10Z",
        "descendants": 157,
        "kids": [
            50069266,
            50069036,
            50069053,
            50069278,
            50069122
        ],
        "type": "story",
        "comments": [
            {
                "id": 50068994,
                "author": "bananaflag",
                "text": "&gt; But if we learn how to use the looms, the spreadsheets, and the chainsaws, we might just be oka",
                "text_plain": "> But if we learn how to use the looms, the spreadsheets, and the chainsaws, we might just be oka",
                "parent_id": 50068946,
                "created_at": "2026-10-13T09:38:34Z",
                "children": []
            }
        ]
    },
    "meta": {
        "endpoint_family": "item",
        "billable": true
    }
}

Errors

Handle these documented responses before retrying or showing customer-facing failures.

503

Hacker News Upstream Unavailable

The upstream service is temporarily unavailable. Please retry shortly.

{
    "success": false,
    "error": {
        "code": "UPSTREAM_UNAVAILABLE",
        "message": "Hacker News upstream is temporarily unavailable."
    },
    "meta": {
        "billable": false,
        "retryable": true
    }
}
500

Parser Drift

Hacker News returned a response shape this parser does not recognise. The incident has been reported; retrying will return the same result.

{
    "success": false,
    "error": {
        "code": "PARSER_DRIFT",
        "message": "Hacker News response shape changed unexpectedly. The incident has been reported."
    },
    "meta": {
        "billable": false,
        "retryable": false
    }
}
404

Not Found

Hacker News has no such public resource. Firebase answers an unknown item or user with a null payload, which this endpoint maps to 404.

{
    "success": false,
    "error": {
        "code": "NOT_FOUND",
        "message": "Hacker News has no such public resource."
    },
    "meta": {
        "billable": false,
        "retryable": false
    }
}
422

Bad Request Upstream

Hacker News rejected a value in this request. Never charged.

{
    "success": false,
    "error": {
        "code": "INVALID_PARAMETER",
        "message": "Hacker News rejected a value in this request. Check the parameters before retrying."
    },
    "meta": {
        "billable": false,
        "retryable": false
    }
}

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