Hacker News feed of items. Pass kind = top (default) | new | best | ask | show | job to pick the feed. Returns each item's id, type, author, time (unix + ISO), title, URL, text (for self-posts), score, descendant + kid counts, parent (for comments), dead/deleted flags, and canonical news.ycombinator.com URL. Default limit = 30, max 100. Useful for tech-sentiment + topic tracking.
/api/news/hn-topPAYMENT-SIGNATURE.The hn top API is a pay-per-call news endpoint built for AI agents and autonomous software. Hacker News feed of items.
There is no signup and no API key. An agent (or any HTTP client) hits the endpoint, receives an x402 "402 Payment Required" challenge, signs a sub-cent USDC payment on Base or Solana, and retries — the data comes back on the paid request. That makes it a drop-in hn top data source for an agent tool-use loop, an MCP host, or a backend that needs news data on demand without onboarding to yet another vendor portal.
| Name | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
kind | string | one of: top | new | best | ask | show | job |
limit | integer | min 1 · max 100 |
# 1. Probe with no auth → 402 envelope with PaymentRequirements curl -sS 'https://2s.io/api/news/hn-top?kind=top&limit=30' # 2. Sign + retry with PAYMENT-SIGNATURE: curl -sS 'https://2s.io/api/news/hn-top?kind=top&limit=30' \ -H 'PAYMENT-SIGNATURE: <base64-json-payload>' # Or use the canonical runner (handles probe → sign → retry): # EVM_PRIVATE_KEY=0x... node --env-file=.env.local \ # --experimental-strip-types scripts/x402-pay.ts \ # 'https://2s.io/api/news/hn-top?kind=top&limit=30'
import { TwoS } from '@2sio/sdk'
const client = new TwoS({
privateKey: process.env.EVM_PRIVATE_KEY as `0x${string}`,
})
const result = await client.news.hnTop({
"kind": "top",
"limit": 30
})
console.log('endpoint:', result.endpoint)
console.log('cost:', result.costUsd, 'USDC')
console.log('tx:', result.settlement?.txHash)
console.log('data:', result.data)import os
from twosio import TwoS
client = TwoS(private_key=os.environ["EVM_PRIVATE_KEY"])
result = client.news.hn_top(kind="top", limit=30)
print("endpoint:", result.endpoint)
print("cost:", result.cost_usd, "USDC")
print("tx:", (result.settlement or {}).get("tx_hash"))
print("data:", result.data)// 1. Add @2sio/mcp to your MCP host config (Claude Desktop example below).
// EVM_PRIVATE_KEY funds x402 payments per call.
// claude_desktop_config.json
{
"mcpServers": {
"2sio": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["-y", "@2sio/mcp"],
"env": { "EVM_PRIVATE_KEY": "0x..." }
}
}
}
// 2. Once the server is running, agents call this tool via standard MCP:
{
"jsonrpc": "2.0",
"id": 1,
"method": "tools/call",
"params": {
"name": "news.hn-top",
"arguments": {
"kind": "top",
"limit": 30
}
}
}| Field | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
ok | boolean | one of: true |
items | array | |
total | integer | Total matching rows upstream; null when unknown. |
source | object | |
meta | object |
{
"ok": true,
"items": [
{
"id": 1,
"type": "example",
"by": "example",
"time": 1,
"timeIso": "example",
"title": "example",
"url": "example",
"text": "example",
"score": 1,
"descendantsCount": 1,
"kidsCount": 1,
"parent": 1,
"deleted": false,
"dead": false,
"hnUrl": "https://example.com"
}
],
"total": 1,
"source": {
"provider": "example",
"url": "example",
"license": "example"
},
"meta": {
"kind": "example"
}
}