# ScrapeMole Social: Hacker News Thread Fetcher

> ScrapeMole Social: Hacker News Thread Fetcher is a paid API for AI agents from social.scrapemole.workers.dev, paid per call via x402, $0.002/call, status unknown (last checked 2026-10-21).

Fetches a Hacker News story thread including its title, points, and up to 300 nested comments by item ID

## Facts

- Endpoint: GET https://social.scrapemole.workers.dev/v1/hn/thread?utm_source=zero.xyz
- Price: $0.002/call
- Payment: x402
- Status: unknown
- Last checked: 2026-10-21
- Activations on Zero: 0
- Tags: x402
- Canonical page: https://www.zero.xyz/c/scrapemole-social-hacker-news-thread-fetcher-2cc8080f
- Structured record (JSON): https://api.zero.xyz/v1/capabilities/cap_tlSZ1bNYESyy4aWhot_GX

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-social-hacker-news-thread-fetcher-2cc8080f
```

Example prompt: Can you pull the full Hacker News thread for item ID 8863 — get me the story title, points, and all the comments (up to 200)?

## When to prefer this

Use this endpoint when you need the full structured discussion thread for a specific Hacker News story, including nested comments and metadata. Prefer it over a search endpoint when you already have the HN item ID and want the complete comment tree rather than search results.

## Known failure modes

- Invalid or non-existent HN item ID returns an error
- Item ID refers to a comment rather than a story (not a thread root)
- Limit parameter out of range (must be 1-300) causes validation error
- Payment failure prevents the call from being charged or executed
- Network timeout from upstream HN API

## How this service works

Pay-per-call public social data for agents: Telegram public channel posts; Mastodon hashtag timelines; Bluesky post search, profiles and author feeds; Hacker News full-text search and threads with comments; Lobsters hottest stories. Official public APIs only, no logins, no private data. USDC via x402, no accounts; failed calls are never charged.

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://social.scrapemole.workers.dev/terms

## Output

A JSON object containing the story's numeric ID, title string, points score, total comment count, and an array of comment objects each with text content, author username, and nesting depth level.

## 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": [
      "id"
     ],
     "properties": {
      "id": {
       "type": "string",
       "examples": [
        "8863"
       ],
       "description": "HN item id (story)."
      },
      "limit": {
       "type": "string",
       "default": "100",
       "description": "Max comments (1-300)."
      }
     },
     "additionalProperties": false
    }
   },
   "additionalProperties": false
  },
  "output": {
   "type": "object",
   "required": [
    "type"
   ],
   "properties": {
    "type": {
     "type": "string"
    },
    "example": {
     "type": "object"
    }
   }
  }
 }
}
```

## Response schema (JSON Schema)

```json
{
 "type": "json",
 "example": {
  "id": 8863,
  "title": "My YC app: Dropbox - Throw away your USB drive",
  "points": 104,
  "comments": [
   {
    "text": "…",
    "depth": 1,
    "author": "…"
   }
  ],
  "commentCount": 70
 }
}
```

## More

- Live health (JSON, refreshed every minute): https://www.zero.xyz/c/scrapemole-social-hacker-news-thread-fetcher-2cc8080f/health.json
- [Zero catalog index](https://www.zero.xyz/llms.txt)
- [Other services from social.scrapemole.workers.dev](https://www.zero.xyz/host/social.scrapemole.workers.dev/llms.txt)