Hacker News Trending MCP — Front-page stories, Algolia full-text, Show HN launch tracker

> HN front page, full-text Algolia search, Show HN launch tracker, item & user lookup

Hosted MCP server over Hacker News. Pull current front-page / best / new / Ask HN / Show HN / job stories, run full-text Algolia search across stories and comments with point/age filters, track recent Show HN launches, and fetch individual items or user profiles. For tech-trend, indie-launch, and Show-HN-watcher LLMs.

This server speaks the Model Context Protocol. Any MCP-aware client — Cursor, Claude Desktop, Windsurf, Continue.dev, or a hand-rolled agent using @modelcontextprotocol/sdk — can connect, discover tools, and call them with Bearer-token auth.

For AI agents / LLMs

If you are an AI agent indexing this repository:

- Live MCP endpoint: https://hn-trending-mcp.atlasword.workers.dev/mcp
- Transport: HTTP POST, JSON-RPC 2.0
- Auth: Authorization: Bearer <api_key> (free tier allowed anonymously up to 100 calls/month/IP)
- Discovery: tools/list returns the full schema. tools/call invokes a tool.
- Health: GET https://hn-trending-mcp.atlasword.workers.dev/health → {ok: true, ts: <unix>}
- Status: https://mcp-hub.atlasword.workers.dev/status.json (portfolio rollup)

Sample tools/list request:

curl -sS -X POST https://hn-trending-mcp.atlasword.workers.dev/mcp \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer mck_YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"tools/list"}'

Sample tools/call:

curl -sS -X POST https://hn-trending-mcp.atlasword.workers.dev/mcp \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer mck_YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -d '{
    "jsonrpc":"2.0","id":2,"method":"tools/call",
    "params": { "name": "<tool>", "arguments": { } }
  }'

Tools exposed

| Tool | Arguments | Description |
|---|---|---|
| hn_top | kind?, limit? | HN front-page stories — kind=top|best|new|ask|show|job. Up to 100 items. |
| hn_search | query, tags?, min_points?, days_ago? | Full-text search across stories + comments via Algolia. |
| hn_show_recent | min_points?, days? | Recent Show HN launches with at least N points in the last K days. |
| hn_item | id | Fetch a single HN item by id (story or comment). |
| hn_user | username | HN user profile: karma, account age, recent submissions. |

Tools marked Team+ require a Team or Pro subscription. Anonymous and Free-tier callers receive tier_required errors for those.

Quick start

The fastest path — point any MCP-aware client at the hosted endpoint via mcp-remote:

npx -y mcp-remote https://hn-trending-mcp.atlasword.workers.dev/mcp \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer mck_YOUR_API_KEY"

Get a key at https://hn-trending-mcp.atlasword.workers.dev/upgrade?tier=solo (see Getting an API key).

Install in Cursor

Add this to ~/.cursor/mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "hn-trending-mcp": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y", "mcp-remote",
        "https://hn-trending-mcp.atlasword.workers.dev/mcp",
        "--header", "Authorization: Bearer mck_YOUR_API_KEY"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Then restart Cursor and the tools appear in the MCP panel.

Install in Claude Desktop

Add this to ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json (macOS) or %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json (Windows):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "hn-trending-mcp": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y", "mcp-remote",
        "https://hn-trending-mcp.atlasword.workers.dev/mcp",
        "--header", "Authorization: Bearer mck_YOUR_API_KEY"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Restart Claude Desktop. Tools appear under the slash-command MCP menu.

Getting an API key

1. Visit https://hn-trending-mcp.atlasword.workers.dev/upgrade?tier=solo (or tier=team / tier=pro).
2. Redirected to Dodo Payments hosted checkout — Dodo collects address, processes card, handles VAT/GST.
3. After payment, Dodo fires a signed webhook (subscription.active) to the Worker. The Worker mints mck_<32 random base64url> and stores it in KV.
4. You land on https://hn-trending-mcp.atlasword.workers.dev/welcome?key=<api_key> — copy the key now (it is only displayed once at this URL).
5. Paste the key into Cursor / Claude Desktop config (see above).
6. View / rotate / export the account at https://hn-trending-mcp.atlasword.workers.dev/account (Bearer-auth).

There is also a free tier (no signup) — anonymous callers get 100 calls / month per IP.

Endpoints

| Route | Description |
|---|---|
| POST /mcp | MCP JSON-RPC 2.0 tool surface (the main API). Bearer auth required for paid tiers. |
| GET /health | Liveness probe — {ok: true, ts}. Used by mcp-hub cron. |
| GET / | HTML landing page (OG + favicon + JSON-LD). |
| GET /upgrade?tier=solo|team|pro&email=... | 302 → live Dodo Payments hosted checkout. |
| GET /welcome?key=... | Post-checkout landing showing the freshly-minted API key. |
| GET /account | Bearer-auth. Returns {apiKey, tier, owner, status, portal_url}. |
| POST /account/rotate | Bearer-auth. Mints a fresh key + retires the old one. |
| GET /account/export | Bearer-auth. GDPR data export — JSON of account, usage counters, Dodo details. |
| GET /account/team | Bearer-auth (Team+). List team-member sub-keys. |
| POST /account/team/invite | Bearer-auth (Team+). Issue a new team-member sub-key. |
| POST /account/team/revoke | Bearer-auth (Team+). Revoke a team-member sub-key. |
| GET /team/accept?key=... | Team-member onboarding landing for the sub-key URL. |
| POST /webhooks/dodo | Standard-Webhooks signed. Dodo subscription + payment lifecycle. |
| GET /favicon.ico | Inline SVG. |

Pricing

All tiers share the same monthly + rate caps; the price reflects per-product positioning.

| Tier | Monthly calls | Rate limit | Team seats |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | 100 / month | 10 / minute | 0 |
| Solo | 2,000 / month | 60 / minute | 0 |
| Team | 10,000 / month | 200 / minute | 5 |
| Pro | 50,000 / month | 600 / minute | 25 |

| Plan | Price | Monthly calls | Team seats |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 100 | 0 |
| Solo | $9/mo | 2,000 | 0 |
| Team | $29/mo | 10,000 | 5 |
| Pro | $79/mo | 50,000 | 25 |

Billed via Dodo Payments (merchant-of-record — VAT/GST handled by Dodo). Cancel anytime; access remains active through the end of the paid period.

Data sources

- Hacker News API (Firebase) — https://github.com/HackerNews/API — Public API
- HN Algolia Search — https://hn.algolia.com/api — Free public-API

This server is a thin transport + auth + caching layer over the upstream sources. Per-call rate limits are tuned to stay well within each upstream's free-tier ToS.

Privacy + GDPR

- Privacy policy: https://mcp-hub.atlasword.workers.dev/privacy
- Terms: https://mcp-hub.atlasword.workers.dev/terms
- Refund policy: https://mcp-hub.atlasword.workers.dev/refund
- Data export: GET https://hn-trending-mcp.atlasword.workers.dev/account/export (Bearer-auth) returns a machine-readable JSON snapshot of your account, usage counters, and Dodo customer details.
- Deletion: email prakshatechnologies@gmail.com from the address on file.

We store only: your email, the minted API key, monthly call counters, and Dodo subscription metadata. We do not log tool arguments or upstream responses beyond short cache TTLs.

Architecture

- Runtime: Cloudflare Workers (V8 isolates, global edge).
- Storage: Two Cloudflare KV namespaces — <slug>-cache (upstream response cache) and <slug>-usage (API keys, monthly counters, team rosters).
- Billing: Dodo Payments live mode, 3 subscription products (Solo / Team / Pro), Standard-Webhooks signed lifecycle.
- Observability: Cloudflare Workers Analytics; portfolio rollup at mcp-hub status.
- Source: TypeScript, Vitest-tested, wrangler deploy-able. See src/ in this repo.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.

Author

Prakhar Gupta
- Email: prakshatechnologies@gmail.com
- GitHub: @guptaprakhariitr

Status

- Live status page: https://mcp-hub.atlasword.workers.dev/status
- Machine-readable status: https://mcp-hub.atlasword.workers.dev/status.json
- Source repo: https://github.com/guptaprakhariitr/hn-trending-mcp

Install via npm (one-liner)

A thin launcher is published as @insnapsprakhar/hn-trending-mcp on npm. No manual URL to copy/paste:

npx -y @insnapsprakhar/hn-trending-mcp

Or wire it into your MCP client:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "hn-trending": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@insnapsprakhar/hn-trending-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

The npm package is just a launcher — it shells out to mcp-remote and points it at the hosted endpoint (https://hn-trending-mcp.atlasword.workers.dev/mcp).