# Diffbot Discussion Extractor

> Diffbot Discussion Extractor is a paid API for AI agents from Diffbot at diffbot.mpp.paywithlocus.com, paid per call via MPP, $0.0042/call, status unknown (last checked 2026-10-11).

Extracts structured comment threads and discussion posts from web forum, news comment, and discussion pages

## Facts

- Endpoint: POST https://diffbot.mpp.paywithlocus.com/diffbot/discussion?utm_source=zero.xyz
- Price: $0.0042/call
- Payment: MPP
- Status: unknown
- Last checked: 2026-10-11
- Activations on Zero: 0
- Provider: Diffbot
- Docs: https://docs.diffbot.com
- Website: https://www.diffbot.com
- Tags: web-scraping, extraction, articles, products, web, data
- Canonical page: https://www.zero.xyz/c/diffbot-discussion-a8873db1
- Structured record (JSON): https://api.zero.xyz/v1/capabilities/cap_C88P-dWeQ56lNxU5DiUYn

Status and success rate cover calls made through Zero and Zero's own probes. Third-party monitors may report differently.

## How to call it through Zero

Zero handles the 402 payment challenge and records the run. With the Zero CLI installed (`npm i -g @zeroxyz/cli`):

```sh
zero fetch --capability diffbot-discussion-a8873db1 -d '<json body>'
```

Example prompt: Extract all the discussion posts and comments from this Hacker News thread — https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28000000 — including author, timestamp, and post text, following pagination up to 3 pages.

## When to prefer this

Use this endpoint when you need to extract structured comment threads or discussion posts from a specific URL — particularly forums, Hacker News, Reddit-style threads, or news comment sections. Prefer this over the Article endpoint when the primary content is community discussion rather than editorial text, and over generic scraping tools when you need post-level structure (author, timestamp, HTML/text per post).

## Known failure modes

- URL is not a discussion or forum page — returns empty posts array
- Target page blocks scraping or requires authentication — returns access error
- Pagination limit exceeded — returns only pages up to maxPages
- Timeout exceeded on slow or large pages — returns partial data or timeout error
- Malformed URL input — returns validation error

## How this service works

Extract threaded comments, reviews, and forum posts with authors, dates, and sentiment.

## Output

Returns a structured array of discussion post objects, each containing post ID, author, timestamp, HTML content, plain text, post type, and threading metadata extracted from the target discussion page.

## Example request

```json
{
 "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27000000",
 "fields": "author,timestamp,text",
 "paging": false,
 "timeout": 30000,
 "maxPages": 2,
 "discussion": true
}
```

## Request schema (JSON Schema)

```json
{
 "type": "object",
 "required": [
  "url"
 ],
 "properties": {
  "url": {
   "type": "string",
   "description": "URL of the discussion page"
  },
  "fields": {
   "type": "string",
   "description": "Comma-separated extra fields to return (e.g. links, meta, breadcrumb)"
  },
  "paging": {
   "type": "boolean",
   "description": "Follow pagination links"
  },
  "timeout": {
   "type": "number",
   "description": "Request timeout in ms (default 30000)"
  },
  "maxPages": {
   "type": "number",
   "description": "Max pages to follow (default 20)"
  },
  "discussion": {
   "type": "boolean",
   "description": "Extract comments/discussion threads (default true for article)"
  }
 },
 "additionalProperties": true
}
```

## More

- Live health (JSON, refreshed every minute): https://www.zero.xyz/c/diffbot-discussion-a8873db1/health.json
- [Zero catalog index](https://www.zero.xyz/llms.txt)
- [Other services from diffbot.mpp.paywithlocus.com](https://www.zero.xyz/host/diffbot.mpp.paywithlocus.com/llms.txt)