# Hacker News Front Page by Date

> Hacker News Front Page by Date is a paid API for AI agents from hacker-news.x402tookit.com, paid per call via x402, $0.03/call, status unknown (last checked 2026-11-02).

Returns the best-scored Hacker News stories submitted on a given UTC date, flagged if they are currently on the front page.

## Facts

- Endpoint: GET https://hacker-news.x402tookit.com/hn-front-page-date?utm_source=zero.xyz
- Price: $0.03/call
- Payment: x402
- Status: unknown
- Last checked: 2026-11-02
- Activations on Zero: 0
- Tags: x402
- Canonical page: https://www.zero.xyz/c/hacker-news-front-page-by-date-cf93569f
- Structured record (JSON): https://api.zero.xyz/v1/capabilities/cap_AIaaUuTJdR6dK0HIre6co

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 hacker-news-front-page-by-date-cf93569f
```

Example prompt: What were the top 20 Hacker News stories from March 10, 2024, and are any of them still on the front page right now?

## When to prefer this

Use this endpoint when you need historical Hacker News story rankings for a specific past UTC date, especially when you want to know which stories were most popular on that day and whether any are still trending. Prefer this over the current top-stories endpoint when the date is in the past. Use the search endpoint instead if you need keyword or topic filtering across a date range rather than a specific day's top stories.

## Known failure modes

- Date is in the future — endpoint rejects future dates
- Date has no archived stories — returns empty or degraded result with reasons
- Invalid date format provided — schema validation error
- Network or upstream HN API failure — degraded flag set to true with explanation
- Limit out of range (below 1 or above 30) — validation error

## How this service works

Best-scored Hacker News stories submitted on a UTC date (past front pages are not archived), flagged if still on the front page.

## Output

Returns a ranked list of up to 30 Hacker News stories for the requested UTC date, each including title, URL, domain, author, points, comment count, posting timestamp, rank, discussion link, and a flag indicating whether the story is currently on the front page. Also includes metadata such as an 'asOf' timestamp, data source URL, a summary, number of stories scoring 20+ points, degraded-mode indicator, and any reasons or disclaimers about data quality.

## Request schema (JSON Schema)

```json
{
 "type": "object",
 "$schema": "https://json-schema.org/draft/2020-12/schema",
 "required": [
  "input"
 ],
 "properties": {
  "input": {
   "type": "object",
   "required": [
    "type",
    "method"
   ],
   "properties": {
    "type": {
     "type": "string",
     "const": "http"
    },
    "method": {
     "enum": [
      "GET"
     ],
     "type": "string"
    },
    "queryParams": {
     "type": "object",
     "required": [
      "date"
     ],
     "properties": {
      "date": {
       "type": "string",
       "description": "UTC day YYYY-MM-DD, not in the future"
      },
      "limit": {
       "type": "integer",
       "description": "Stories 1 to 30 (default 15)"
      }
     }
    }
   },
   "additionalProperties": false
  },
  "output": {
   "type": "object",
   "required": [
    "type"
   ],
   "properties": {
    "type": {
     "type": "string"
    },
    "example": {
     "type": "object",
     "properties": {
      "asOf": {
       "type": [
        "null",
        "string"
       ]
      },
      "date": {
       "type": [
        "null",
        "string"
       ]
      },
      "basis": {
       "type": [
        "null",
        "string"
       ]
      },
      "source": {
       "type": [
        "null",
        "string"
       ]
      },
      "reasons": {
       "type": [
        "array",
        "null"
       ],
       "items": {
        "type": "string"
       }
      },
      "stories": {
       "type": [
        "array",
        "null"
       ],
       "items": {
        "type": "object",
        "properties": {
         "by": {
          "type": [
           "null",
           "string"
          ]
         },
         "id": {
          "type": [
           "null",
           "number"
          ]
         },
         "url": {
          "type": [
           "null",
           "string"
          ]
         },
         "rank": {
          "type": [
           "null",
           "number"
          ]
         },
         "title": {
          "type": [
           "null",
           "string"
          ]
         },
         "domain": {
          "type": [
           "null",
           "string"
          ]
         },
         "points": {
          "type": [
           "null",
           "number"
          ]
         },
         "comments": {
          "type": [
           "null",
           "number"
          ]
         },
         "postedAt": {
          "type": [
           "null",
           "string"
          ]
         },
       
… (truncated)
```

## More

- Live health (JSON, refreshed every minute): https://www.zero.xyz/c/hacker-news-front-page-by-date-cf93569f/health.json
- [Zero catalog index](https://www.zero.xyz/llms.txt)
- [Other services from hacker-news.x402tookit.com](https://www.zero.xyz/host/hacker-news.x402tookit.com/llms.txt)