# SiteCheck Hacker News Search

> SiteCheck Hacker News Search is a paid API for AI agents from api.sitecheck-api.workers.dev, paid per call via x402, $0.002/call, status unknown (last checked 2026-10-16).

Search Hacker News stories and comments by keyword with optional date range, sort order, and minimum points filters

## Facts

- Endpoint: GET https://api.sitecheck-api.workers.dev/api/hn/search?utm_source=zero.xyz
- Price: $0.002/call
- Payment: x402
- Status: unknown
- Last checked: 2026-10-16
- Activations on Zero: 0
- Tags: x402
- Canonical page: https://www.zero.xyz/c/sitecheck-hacker-news-search-917d5a5f
- Structured record (JSON): https://api.zero.xyz/v1/capabilities/cap_h6WS6pN9bMhIU4GB8rFWC

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 sitecheck-hacker-news-search-917d5a5f
```

Example prompt: Search Hacker News for the top stories about WebAssembly, sorted by relevance, with at least 100 points — give me the 10 best results.

## When to prefer this

Choose this endpoint when you need to search Hacker News specifically — for developer sentiment, community reactions, or tech-focused discussions. It wraps the Algolia HN Search API with date filtering, minimum-points filtering, and story-vs-comment type selection in a single pay-per-call interface. Prefer it over general web search when the target audience is the Hacker News tech community and you want structured metadata (points, comments, author) alongside the URL.

## Known failure modes

- Missing required 'q' parameter returns a 400 error
- Query string exceeding 200 characters may be rejected
- Date strings not in YYYY-MM-DD format may cause a 400 or unexpected results
- Invalid 'sort' value (not 'relevance' or 'date') may default or error
- Limit outside 1-25 range may be clamped or rejected
- Algolia upstream outage may cause 502 or empty results
- Very niche queries may return 0 hits even when valid

## How this service works

Full-text search of Hacker News stories or comments through the Algolia HN API: title, URL, author, points, comment count, time and HN link; comments include their text (max 500 characters). Filters: date range (from, to as YYYY-MM-DD), minimum points, sort by relevance or date. Covers the public HN index only; limit max 25.

## Output

Returns a JSON object with the search query, sort mode, content type, total hit count, and an array of up to 25 matching results. Each result includes the HN item ID, original article URL, direct HN link, title, author username, upvote points, comment count, and ISO 8601 creation timestamp. Also includes metadata about the data source and the time the query was executed.

## 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": [
      "q"
     ],
     "properties": {
      "q": {
       "type": "string",
       "description": "Search words (1-200 characters)"
      },
      "to": {
       "type": "string",
       "description": "Latest creation date YYYY-MM-DD (optional)"
      },
      "from": {
       "type": "string",
       "description": "Earliest creation date YYYY-MM-DD (optional)"
      },
      "sort": {
       "type": "string",
       "description": "relevance (default) or date (newest first)"
      },
      "type": {
       "type": "string",
       "description": "story (default) or comment"
      },
      "limit": {
       "type": "string",
       "description": "Results, 1-25 (default 10)"
      },
      "minPoints": {
       "type": "string",
       "description": "Minimum points (default 0)"
      }
     }
    }
   },
   "additionalProperties": false
  },
  "output": {
   "type": "object",
   "required": [
    "type"
   ],
   "properties": {
    "type": {
     "type": "string"
    },
    "example": {
     "type": "object"
    }
   }
  }
 }
}
```

## Response schema (JSON Schema)

```json
{
 "type": "json",
 "example": {
  "sort": "relevance",
  "type": "story",
  "count": 3,
  "query": "rust",
  "nbHits": 60865,
  "source": "Hacker News via the Algolia HN Search API (hn.algolia.com/api) — Hacker News content, check its terms",
  "results": [
   {
    "id": "22238335",
    "url": "https://blog.discordapp.com/why-discord-is-switching-from-go-to-rust-a190bbca2b1f",
    "hnUrl": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22238335",
    "title": "Why Discord is switching from Go to Rust",
    "author": "Sikul",
    "points": 1582,
    "comments": 642,
    "createdAt": "2020-02-04T17:30:40Z"
   },
   {
    "id": "40172033",
    "url": "https://loglog.games/blog/leaving-rust-gamedev/",
    "hnUrl": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40172033",
    "title": "Leaving Rust gamedev after 3 years",
    "author": "darthdeus",
    "points": 1484,
    "comments": 972,
    "createdAt": "2024-04-26T17:33:56Z"
   },
   {
    "id": "25610741",
    "url": "https://fasterthanli.me/articles/a-half-hour-to-learn-rust",
    "hnUrl": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25610741",
    "title": "A half-hour to learn Rust",
    "author": "selvan",
    "points": 1444,
    "comments": 330,
    "createdAt": "2021-01-02T05:50:39Z"
   }
  ],
  "checkedAt": "2026-10-15T18:21:08.101Z"
 }
}
```

## More

- Live health (JSON, refreshed every minute): https://www.zero.xyz/c/sitecheck-hacker-news-search-917d5a5f/health.json
- [Zero catalog index](https://www.zero.xyz/llms.txt)
- [Other services from api.sitecheck-api.workers.dev](https://www.zero.xyz/host/api.sitecheck-api.workers.dev/llms.txt)