# ScrapeMole Pulse: Hacker News Front Page

> ScrapeMole Pulse: Hacker News Front Page is a paid API for AI agents from pulse.scrapemole.workers.dev, paid per call via x402, $0.002/call, status unknown (last checked 2026-10-13).

Returns live Hacker News stories (top, new, best, ask, show, or job lists) with titles, scores, comment counts, and URLs

## Facts

- Endpoint: GET https://pulse.scrapemole.workers.dev/v1/news/hn?utm_source=zero.xyz
- Price: $0.002/call
- Payment: x402
- Status: unknown
- Last checked: 2026-10-13
- Activations on Zero: 0
- Tags: x402
- Canonical page: https://www.zero.xyz/c/scrapemole-pulse-hacker-news-front-page-e2a6b19e
- Structured record (JSON): https://api.zero.xyz/v1/capabilities/cap_Dwv9MD9rejB-hNGz4adSp

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 scrapemole-pulse-hacker-news-front-page-e2a6b19e
```

Example prompt: What are the top 15 stories on Hacker News right now — show me titles, scores, and links?

## When to prefer this

Use this endpoint when an AI agent needs real-time Hacker News front-page data without scraping — especially for pay-per-call, no-account workflows using USDC via x402. Prefer over direct HN API calls when you want a clean, licensed, source-attributed JSON response with built-in filtering by list type and story count. Best for agents that need live tech community sentiment, trending developer topics, or job posts without maintaining API credentials.

## Known failure modes

- Hacker News API unavailable — upstream outage returns error
- Invalid list parameter value — must be one of top, new, best, ask, show, or job
- Limit out of range — must be 1-30, invalid values may return error or be clamped
- Payment not completed via x402 — 402 response returned before content is delivered
- Network timeout from upstream HN API causing delayed or empty response

## How this service works

Pay-per-call "state of the world" lookups that language models cannot know on their own: official ECB exchange rates (latest, historical, conversion), the current time and DST-aware time-zone conversion for scheduling, global weather forecasts (MET Norway, by coordinates or place name) and the live Hacker News front page. Public, non-personal data with sources and licences in every response. USDC via x402, no accounts.

Payments: x402 v2, scheme "exact", USDC on Base (eip155:8453). The payment is verified before the work and settled only when the response is 200. Terms: https://pulse.scrapemole.workers.dev/terms

## Output

A JSON object containing the requested list type, story count, and an array of stories each with id, rank, title, URL, domain, points, comment count, ISO timestamp, and a direct link to the HN discussion thread. Source attribution to the Hacker News API is included.

## 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": [],
     "properties": {
      "list": {
       "type": "string",
       "default": "top",
       "examples": [
        "top"
       ],
       "description": "top, new, best, ask, show or job."
      },
      "limit": {
       "type": "string",
       "default": "10",
       "examples": [
        "10"
       ],
       "description": "Stories to return (1-30)."
      }
     },
     "additionalProperties": false
    }
   },
   "additionalProperties": false
  },
  "output": {
   "type": "object",
   "required": [
    "type"
   ],
   "properties": {
    "type": {
     "type": "string"
    },
    "example": {
     "type": "object"
    }
   }
  }
 }
}
```

## Response schema (JSON Schema)

```json
{
 "type": "json",
 "example": {
  "list": "top",
  "count": 1,
  "source": "Hacker News API (https://github.com/HackerNews/API)",
  "stories": [
   {
    "id": 41234567,
    "url": "https://example.org/post",
    "rank": 1,
    "title": "Show HN: A pay-per-call API for agents",
    "domain": "example.org",
    "points": 312,
    "comments": 141,
    "postedAt": "2026-10-12T05:01:00Z",
    "discussionUrl": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41234567"
   }
  ]
 }
}
```

## More

- Live health (JSON, refreshed every minute): https://www.zero.xyz/c/scrapemole-pulse-hacker-news-front-page-e2a6b19e/health.json
- [Zero catalog index](https://www.zero.xyz/llms.txt)
- [Other services from pulse.scrapemole.workers.dev](https://www.zero.xyz/host/pulse.scrapemole.workers.dev/llms.txt)