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SiteCheck Web Intel: Hacker News Item Lookup
x402
SiteCheck Web Intel: Hacker News Item Lookup is a paid API for AI agents from api.webintel-api.workers.dev, paid per call via x402, $0.002/call, status unknown (last checked 2026-10-25).
Fetches a single Hacker News item (story, comment, job, poll, etc.) by its numeric ID, returning full metadata including title, score, comments, and URL.
Price / call$0.002
Success—
StatusUnknown
How this service works
One Hacker News item by numeric id from the official HN API (Firebase, public, no key): type, title, author, time, score, comment count, link and plain text. Deleted or unknown ids return 404.
Output
A JSON object containing the item's numeric ID, type (story/comment/job/poll), title, author (by), score, URL, text body (if applicable), submission timestamp, number of top-level comments, reply count, the canonical HN item URL, and the data source URL. The checkedAt field indicates when the data was last fetched.
Example use cases
Tracking viral HN story performance
“Look up Hacker News item 41782345 for me — I want to see the current score, comment count, and the link it's pointing to.”
Verifying a cited HN post
“Someone shared HN item ID 39234567 in our Slack — can you fetch the title and author so I can confirm it's a legitimate post and not spam?”
Monitoring a submitted story's reception
“I just submitted a story to HN with ID 42100001 — can you check how many upvotes and comments it has so far?”
Technical details
Endpoint
GEThttps://api.webintel-api.workers.dev/api/search/hackernews-items?utm_source=zero.xyzWhen to prefer
Choose this endpoint when you need structured metadata for a specific Hacker News item by its numeric ID, including score, comment counts, author, and canonical URLs — especially in pay-per-call, no-signup contexts. Prefer it over scraping hn.algolia.com or the Firebase API directly when you want a clean JSON wrapper with a checkedAt timestamp, already normalized fields, and x402 micropayment access without API key management.
Side effects
- Invalid or non-existent item ID returns an error or empty response
- Item deleted or dead on HN may return minimal or null fields
- Rate limiting or upstream Firebase API unavailability
- Missing required 'id' query parameter results in validation error
- Non-numeric ID strings will fail schema validation
Input
Schema · Request body
| Field | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| inputrequired | object | |
| output | object |
Output
Schema · Response
{
"type": "json",
"example": {
"by": "dhouston",
"id": 8863,
"url": "http://www.getdropbox.com/u/2/screencast.html",
"text": null,
"time": "2007-04-04T19:16:40.000Z",
"type": "story",
"hnUrl": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863",
"score": 104,
"title": "My YC app: Dropbox - Throw away your USB drive",
"source": "https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/item/8863.json",
"comments": 71,
"checkedAt": "2026-10-23T09:38:46.896Z",
"replyCount": 33
}
}Tags
x402
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