# Hacker News User Profile Lookup

> Hacker News User Profile Lookup 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).

Fetches a Hacker News user's karma, account age, submission count, and recent activity including their top story.

## Facts

- Endpoint: GET https://hacker-news.x402tookit.com/hn-user?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-user-profile-lookup-0a715167
- Structured record (JSON): https://api.zero.xyz/v1/capabilities/cap_ihIx7QN-pysUmLQC2ylkf

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-user-profile-lookup-0a715167
```

Example prompt: Can you pull up the Hacker News profile for 'pg' — I want to see their karma, how long they've been on the site, total submissions, and what their top story was?

## When to prefer this

Use this endpoint when you need rich profile metadata for a specific Hacker News user — including karma trajectory, submission history, and top content — rather than just searching HN stories or getting site-wide trends. Ideal for due diligence, community research, or verifying HN identity.

## Known failure modes

- Username not found — HN usernames are case-sensitive and must exist
- Degraded response if HN API is slow or partially unavailable
- Null fields for users with no submissions or very new accounts
- Rate limiting or payment failure returning 402

## How this service works

Hacker News user profile: karma, account age, submission count and recent story/comment activity with top story.

## Output

Returns a structured profile for the requested HN user including: karma score, account creation date, account age in days, total submission count, karma per year, a summary of recent activity (story count, comment count, story points, top domains, last active date), details on their top story (title, URL, points, comment count), an 'about' bio if present, and optionally a narrative summary and verdict. May include a degraded flag if data is partial.

## 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": [
      "username"
     ],
     "properties": {
      "username": {
       "type": "string",
       "description": "Case-sensitive HN username, e.g. pg"
      }
     }
    }
   },
   "additionalProperties": false
  },
  "output": {
   "type": "object",
   "required": [
    "type"
   ],
   "properties": {
    "type": {
     "type": "string"
    },
    "example": {
     "type": "object",
     "properties": {
      "asOf": {
       "type": [
        "null",
        "string"
       ]
      },
      "about": {
       "type": [
        "null",
        "string"
       ]
      },
      "karma": {
       "type": [
        "null",
        "number"
       ]
      },
      "source": {
       "type": [
        "null",
        "string"
       ]
      },
      "profile": {
       "type": [
        "null",
        "string"
       ]
      },
      "reasons": {
       "type": [
        "array",
        "null"
       ]
      },
      "summary": {
       "type": [
        "null",
        "string"
       ]
      },
      "verdict": {
       "type": [
        "null",
        "string"
       ]
      },
      "degraded": {
       "type": [
        "boolean",
        "null"
       ]
      },
      "username": {
       "type": [
        "null",
        "string"
       ]
      },
      "createdAt": {
       "type": [
        "null",
        "string"
       ]
      },
      "sourceUrl": {
       "type": [
        "null",
        "string"
       ]
      },
      "disclaimer": {
       "type": [
        "null",
        "string"
       ]
      },
      "notChecked": {
       "type": [
        "array",
        "null"
       ],
       "items": {
        "type": "string"
       }
      },
      "submissions": {
       "type": [
        "null",
        "number"
       ]
      },
      "karmaPerYear": {
       "type": [
        "null",
        "number"
       ]
      },
      "accountAgeDays": {
       "type": [
        "null",
        "number"
       ]
      },
      "recentActivity": {
       "type": [
        "null",
        "object"
       ],
       "properties"
… (truncated)
```

## More

- Live health (JSON, refreshed every minute): https://www.zero.xyz/c/hacker-news-user-profile-lookup-0a715167/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)