# Hacker News Ask HN Posts Feed

> Hacker News Ask HN Posts Feed is a paid API for AI agents from hackernews-x402.vercel.app, paid per call via x402, $0.002/call, status down (last checked 2026-09-16).

Returns the latest Ask HN posts from Hacker News with title, score, author, timestamp, and comment count

## Facts

- Endpoint: GET https://hackernews-x402.vercel.app/hn/ask
- Price: $0.002/call
- Payment: x402
- Status: down
- Last checked: 2026-09-16
- Activations on Zero: 0
- Tags: x402
- Canonical page: https://www.zero.xyz/c/hackernews-x402-vercel-app-434eb051
- Structured record (JSON): https://api.zero.xyz/v1/capabilities/cap_uw_sFVjsBpgkL3ahSyeqb

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 hackernews-x402-vercel-app-434eb051
```

Example prompt: Pull the latest 20 Ask HN posts from Hacker News so I can see what questions the tech community is discussing right now.

## When to prefer this

Use this endpoint when you specifically need community-driven questions and discussions from Hacker News (Ask HN category), rather than link posts or top stories. Ideal for surfacing what the tech/startup community is actively asking about, trend monitoring, or competitive intelligence on developer pain points. Prefer over the top-stories endpoint when you want self-post community conversations rather than external links.

## Known failure modes

- limit parameter exceeds max of 30 — clipped or rejected
- HN API upstream unavailable — 502 or timeout
- Invalid limit string (non-numeric) — validation error
- Payment not processed — 402 response blocking access

## How this service works

Hacker News Ask HN posts. Community questions and discussions — the highest-signal tech community conversations.

## Output

Returns a JSON object with the feed type ('askstories'), post count, and an array of story objects each containing: post ID, title, author, score, timestamp, comment count (descendants), and URL (null for Ask HN posts since they're self-posts).

## Example request

```json
{
 "input": {
  "type": "http",
  "method": "GET",
  "queryParams": {
   "limit": "10"
  }
 }
}
```

## 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",
     "properties": {
      "limit": {
       "type": "string",
       "description": "Number of Ask HN posts (default 10, max 30)"
      }
     }
    }
   },
   "additionalProperties": false
  },
  "output": {
   "type": "object",
   "required": [
    "type"
   ],
   "properties": {
    "type": {
     "type": "string"
    },
    "example": {
     "type": "object",
     "properties": {
      "feed": {
       "type": "string"
      },
      "stories": {
       "type": "array"
      }
     }
    }
   }
  }
 }
}
```

## More

- Live health (JSON, refreshed every minute): https://www.zero.xyz/c/hackernews-x402-vercel-app-434eb051/health.json
- [Zero catalog index](https://www.zero.xyz/llms.txt)
- [Other services from hackernews-x402.vercel.app](https://www.zero.xyz/host/hackernews-x402.vercel.app/llms.txt)