# SiteCheck Web Intel: Hacker News Item Lookup

> 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.

## Facts

- Endpoint: GET https://api.webintel-api.workers.dev/api/search/hackernews-items?utm_source=zero.xyz
- Price: $0.002/call
- Payment: x402
- Status: unknown
- Last checked: 2026-10-25
- Activations on Zero: 0
- Tags: x402
- Canonical page: https://www.zero.xyz/c/sitecheck-web-intel-hacker-news-item-lookup-30baca8a
- Structured record (JSON): https://api.zero.xyz/v1/capabilities/cap_OAd2gNM8XCog8Gj57jdUI

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-web-intel-hacker-news-item-lookup-30baca8a
```

Example prompt: Can you pull up the details for Hacker News item 8863 — I want to know the title, score, and how many comments it has?

## When to prefer this

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.

## Known failure modes

- 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

## 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.

## 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",
       "description": "Numeric HN item id, e.g. 8863"
      }
     }
    }
   },
   "additionalProperties": false
  },
  "output": {
   "type": "object",
   "required": [
    "type"
   ],
   "properties": {
    "type": {
     "type": "string"
    },
    "example": {
     "type": "object"
    }
   }
  }
 }
}
```

## Response schema (JSON Schema)

```json
{
 "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
 }
}
```

## More

- Live health (JSON, refreshed every minute): https://www.zero.xyz/c/sitecheck-web-intel-hacker-news-item-lookup-30baca8a/health.json
- [Zero catalog index](https://www.zero.xyz/llms.txt)
- [Other services from api.webintel-api.workers.dev](https://www.zero.xyz/host/api.webintel-api.workers.dev/llms.txt)