# Pp Hackernews > Hacker News from your terminal — with a local SQLite store, snapshot history, and agent-native output no other HN tool has. Trigger phrases: `check hacker news`, `search hn`, `what is hn saying about`, `diff the hn front page`, `pulse on hn`, `look up hn user`, `hn who is hiring`, `hn top stories`, `use hackernews`, `run hackernews`. - Skill: `mvanhorn-printing-press-libra/pp-hackernews` (Agent Skill) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds add mvanhorn-printing-press-libra/pp-hackernews` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/mvanhorn-printing-press-libra/pp-hackernews/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: AI & ML - License: Apache-2.0 - Author: mvanhorn (https://skillmd.com/u/mvanhorn-printing-press-libra) - Updated: 2026-09-09 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/mvanhorn-printing-press-libra/pp-hackernews --- # Hacker News — Printing Press CLI ## Prerequisites: Install the CLI This skill drives the `hackernews-pp-cli` binary. **You must verify the CLI is installed before invoking any command from this skill.** If it is missing, install it first: 1. Install via the Printing Press installer. It defaults binaries to `$HOME/.local/bin` on macOS/Linux and `%LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\PrintingPress\bin` on Windows: ```bash npx -y @mvanhorn/printing-press-library install hackernews --cli-only ``` 2. Verify: `hackernews-pp-cli --version` 3. Ensure the reported install directory is on `$PATH` for the agent/runtime that will invoke this skill. If the `npx` install fails (no Node, offline, etc.), fall back to a direct Go install (requires Go 1.26.6 or newer): ```bash go install github.com/mvanhorn/printing-press-library/library/media-and-entertainment/hackernews/cmd/hackernews-pp-cli@latest ``` If `--version` reports "command not found" after install, the runtime cannot see the binary directory on `$PATH`. Do not proceed with skill commands until verification succeeds. ## When to Use This CLI Reach for hackernews-pp-cli when you need to monitor or analyze HN signal programmatically: agent-driven daily diffs, topic pulses, hiring-thread aggregation, repost checks before submitting, structured thread digests for context windows. The local store makes follow-up queries cheap and offline-friendly. ## When Not to Use This CLI Do not activate this CLI for requests that require creating, updating, deleting, publishing, commenting, upvoting, inviting, ordering, sending messages, booking, purchasing, or changing remote state. This printed CLI exposes read-only commands for inspection, export, sync, and analysis. ## Unique Capabilities These capabilities aren't available in any other tool for this API. ### Local snapshots that compound - **`since`** — See exactly what climbed, fell, appeared, or dropped off the front page since your last sync. _Reach for this when an agent wakes up daily and needs to know what shifted on HN since yesterday — without re-fetching 500 items every poll._ ```bash hackernews-pp-cli since --json ``` - **`controversial`** — Stories ranked by the highest comment-to-point ratio over a recent window — the discussions everyone is arguing about. _Reach for this when you want stories with high engagement-to-approval — heated debate signal — instead of just popularity._ ```bash hackernews-pp-cli controversial --window 7d --json ``` - **`velocity`** — Show a story's rank trajectory over time from local snapshots — climb, plateau, or fall. _Reach for this when an agent asks 'is this story still gaining traction or already cresting' — only meaningful answer comes from snapshots._ ```bash hackernews-pp-cli velocity 47998158 --json ``` - **`sync`** — Pull top/new/best/show/ask/job lists and recently-changed items into local SQLite for offline use and snapshot history. _Run this once per day (or per hour for agents) — it is the foundation that turns since/velocity/controversial/users-stats from impossible into one SQL query._ ```bash hackernews-pp-cli sync --resources updates --agent ``` ### Algolia leverage - **`pulse`** — See per-day mentions, average score, and comment volume for any topic over the last N days. _Reach for this when the question is 'is this topic heating up or cooling down' rather than 'what's the top story right now'._ ```bash hackernews-pp-cli pulse rust --days 7 --agent ``` - **`repost`** — Has this URL been posted before? Lists every prior submission, with score, comments, and date. _Reach for this before submitting a Show HN — duplicate URLs flame out instantly; you want to know how a prior post did first._ ```bash hackernews-pp-cli repost https://example.com/article ``` - **`search local`** — Offline full-text search over every story and comment you have ever synced — corpus grows with use. _Reach for this when investigating long-tail topics or replaying last quarter's research — Algolia might rank it down or drop it; your local corpus will not._ ```bash hackernews-pp-cli search local "vector database" --limit 20 --json ``` ### Hiring-thread mining - **`hiring stats`** — Aggregate the last N monthly Who-is-Hiring threads: top languages, remote ratio, top companies, location distribution. _Reach for this when you need quarterly or seasonal hiring trends — language popularity, remote-share shifts, location density — not just this month's listings._ ```bash hackernews-pp-cli hiring stats --months 3 --agent ``` - **`hiring companies`** — Companies that posted in M of the last N hiring threads, with first-seen, last-seen, and months-posted count. _Reach for this when sourcing or trend-tracking — which companies are persistent hirers vs one-off posters — without scraping HNHIRING.com._ ```bash hackernews-pp-cli hiring companies --months 6 --min-posts 3 --agent ``` ### Cross-entity local queries - **`users stats`** — Median and p90 score across a user's submissions, plus traction buckets and hour-of-day score distribution. _Reach for this before posting your own work to learn your traction patterns, or when sizing up a poster's history before engaging._ ```bash hackernews-pp-cli users stats pg --json ``` ## Command Reference **items** — Fetch any HN item (story, comment, job, poll) by ID - `hackernews-pp-cli items ` — Get details for a specific story, comment, job, or poll **maxitem** — Current maximum item ID - `hackernews-pp-cli maxitem` — Returns the largest item ID currently assigned by Hacker News **stories** — Browse top, new, and best Hacker News stories - `hackernews-pp-cli stories ask` — Get the latest Ask HN posts - `hackernews-pp-cli stories best` — Get the highest-voted stories on Hacker News - `hackernews-pp-cli stories job` — Get the latest Hacker News job postings - `hackernews-pp-cli stories new` — Get the newest stories on Hacker News - `hackernews-pp-cli stories show` — Get the latest Show HN posts - `hackernews-pp-cli stories top` — Get the current top stories on Hacker News **updates** — Recently changed items and profiles - `hackernews-pp-cli updates` — Items and user profiles that have changed recently **users** — Look up Hacker News user profiles - `hackernews-pp-cli users ` — Get a user's profile including karma and submission history **Hand-written commands** - `hackernews-pp-cli sync` — Pull top/new/best/show/ask/job lists and recent items into the local SQLite store - `hackernews-pp-cli search ` — Full-text search Hacker News stories and comments via Algolia (use 'search local' for offline FTS) - `hackernews-pp-cli hiring` — Mine 'Ask HN: Who is hiring' threads (filter, stats, companies) - `hackernews-pp-cli freelance` — Mine 'Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer?' threads (filter) - `hackernews-pp-cli since` — Show what changed on the front page since the last sync (added, removed, moved stories) - `hackernews-pp-cli pulse ` — Show what HN is saying about a topic — per-day mentions, score, and comment volume - `hackernews-pp-cli controversial` — Find stories with the highest comment-to-point ratio (polarizing discussions) - `hackernews-pp-cli repost ` — Has this URL been posted on HN? Lists prior submissions with scores and dates - `hackernews-pp-cli velocity ` — Show a story's rank trajectory across local snapshots - `hackernews-pp-cli doctor` — Run a self-diagnostic: API reachability, store writability, config sanity ## Freshness Contract This printed CLI owns bounded freshness only for registered store-backed read command paths. In `--data-source auto` mode, those paths check `sync_state` and may run a bounded refresh before reading local data. `--data-source local` never refreshes. `--data-source live` reads the API and does not mutate the local store. Set `HACKERNEWS_NO_AUTO_REFRESH=1` to skip the freshness hook without changing source selection. Covered paths: - `hackernews-pp-cli stories` - `hackernews-pp-cli stories ask` - `hackernews-pp-cli stories best` - `hackernews-pp-cli stories job` - `hackernews-pp-cli stories new` - `hackernews-pp-cli stories show` - `hackernews-pp-cli stories top` - `hackernews-pp-cli updates` When JSON output uses the generated provenance envelope, freshness metadata appears at `meta.freshness`. Treat it as current-cache freshness for the covered command path, not a guarantee of complete historical backfill or API-specific enrichment. ### Finding the right command When you know what you want to do but not which command does it, ask the CLI directly: ```bash hackernews-pp-cli which "" ``` `which` resolves a natural-language capability query to the best matching command from this CLI's curated feature index. Exit code `0` means at least one match; exit code `2` means no confident match — fall back to `--help` or use a narrower query. ## Recipes ### Daily front-page diff for an agent ```bash hackernews-pp-cli sync && hackernews-pp-cli since --json --select added,removed,moved ``` Sync, then diff. The --select narrows the payload to just the change deltas — agents process kilobytes instead of megabytes. ### Topic monitoring with selected fields ```bash hackernews-pp-cli pulse openai --days 7 --agent --select buckets.day,buckets.hits,buckets.avg_score ``` Per-day breakdown of mentions, average score, and comment volume — using --select to pull only the trend axes from the deeply-nested response. ### Pre-submit dupe check ```bash hackernews-pp-cli repost https://example.com/article --json ``` Lists every prior submission of that URL with score, comments, and date — answers the 'has this been posted' question in one round-trip. ### Filter Who's Hiring for remote Go roles ```bash hackernews-pp-cli hiring filter "(remote|REMOTE).*\\bGo\\b" --json ``` Regex against the latest monthly thread. The double-escaped \\b is a real regex word boundary; --json gives you structured rows instead of one big match dump. ### Quarterly hiring trend ```bash hackernews-pp-cli hiring companies --months 6 --min-posts 3 --agent ``` Companies posting in 3+ of the last 6 monthly threads — first-seen, last-seen, total months. Cross-month queries you cannot do without a local store. ## Auth Setup No authentication required. Run `hackernews-pp-cli doctor` to verify setup. ## Agent Mode Add `--agent` to any command. Expands to: `--json --compact --no-input --no-color --yes`. - **Pipeable** — JSON on stdout, errors on stderr - **Filterable** — `--select` keeps a subset of fields. Dotted paths descend into nested structures; arrays traverse element-wise. Critical for keeping context small on verbose APIs: ```bash hackernews-pp-cli items 47998158 --agent --select id,name,status ``` - **Previewable** — `--dry-run` shows the request without sending - **Offline-friendly** — sync/search commands can use the local SQLite store when available - **Non-interactive** — never prompts, every input is a flag - **Read-only** — do not use this CLI for create, update, delete, publish, comment, upvote, invite, order, send, or other mutating requests ### Response envelope Commands that read from the local store or the API wrap output in a provenance envelope: ```json { "meta": {"source": "live" | "local", "synced_at": "...", "reason": "..."}, "results": } ``` Parse `.results` for data and `.meta.source` to know whether it's live or local. A human-readable `N results (live)` summary is printed to stderr only when stdout is a terminal — piped/agent consumers get pure JSON on stdout. ## Agent Feedback When you (or the agent) notice something off about this CLI, record it: ``` hackernews-pp-cli feedback "the --since flag is inclusive but docs say exclusive" hackernews-pp-cli feedback --stdin < notes.txt hackernews-pp-cli feedback list --json --limit 10 ``` Entries are stored locally at `~/.hackernews-pp-cli/feedback.jsonl`. They are never POSTed unless `HACKERNEWS_FEEDBACK_ENDPOINT` is set AND either `--send` is passed or `HACKERNEWS_FEEDBACK_AUTO_SEND=true`. Default behavior is local-only. Write what *surprised* you, not a bug report. Short, specific, one line: that is the part that compounds. ## Output Delivery Every command accepts `--deliver `. The output goes to the named sink in addition to (or instead of) stdout, so agents can route command results without hand-piping. Three sinks are supported: | Sink | Effect | |------|--------| | `stdout` | Default; write to stdout only | | `file:` | Atomically write output to `` (tmp + rename) | | `webhook:` | POST the output body to the URL (`application/json` or `application/x-ndjson` when `--compact`) | Unknown schemes are refused with a structured error naming the supported set. Webhook failures return non-zero and log the URL + HTTP status on stderr. ## Named Profiles A profile is a saved set of flag values, reused across invocations. Use it when a scheduled agent calls the same command every run with the same configuration - HeyGen's "Beacon" pattern. ``` hackernews-pp-cli profile save briefing --json hackernews-pp-cli --profile briefing items 47998158 hackernews-pp-cli profile list --json hackernews-pp-cli profile show briefing hackernews-pp-cli profile delete briefing --yes ``` Explicit flags always win over profile values; profile values win over defaults. `agent-context` lists all available profiles under `available_profiles` so introspecting agents discover them at runtime. ## Exit Codes | Code | Meaning | |------|---------| | 0 | Success | | 2 | Usage error (wrong arguments) | | 3 | Resource not found | | 5 | API error (upstream issue) | | 7 | Rate limited (wait and retry) | | 10 | Config error | ## Argument Parsing Parse `$ARGUMENTS`: 1. **Empty, `help`, or `--help`** → show `hackernews-pp-cli --help` output 2. **Starts with `install`** → ends with `mcp` → MCP installation; otherwise → see Prerequisites above 3. **Anything else** → Direct Use (execute as CLI command with `--agent`) ## MCP Server Installation 1. Install the MCP server: ```bash go install github.com/mvanhorn/printing-press-library/library/media-and-entertainment/hackernews/cmd/hackernews-pp-mcp@latest ``` 2. Register with Claude Code: ```bash claude mcp add hackernews-pp-mcp -- hackernews-pp-mcp ``` 3. Verify: `claude mcp list` ## Direct Use 1. Check if installed: `which hackernews-pp-cli` If not found, offer to install (see Prerequisites at the top of this skill). 2. Match the user query to the best command from the Unique Capabilities and Command Reference above. 3. Execute with the `--agent` flag: ```bash hackernews-pp-cli [subcommand] [args] --agent ``` 4. If ambiguous, drill into subcommand help: `hackernews-pp-cli --help`.