What this robot does
The Hacker News front page is arguably the most influential curation of technology news on the internet. A post that reaches the front page has been upvoted by thousands of technologists - software engineers, startup founders, venture capitalists, and researchers - who collectively decide what matters in tech on any given day. The front page turns over several times daily, and missing a post means missing the conversation.
For product teams monitoring industry sentiment, marketing teams tracking which technical topics generate buzz, and researchers studying technology diffusion, the HN front page is essential signal - but its ephemeral nature makes it hard to track systematically. This robot extracts the current state of the Hacker News front page: every post title, its link, source domain, and position on the front page. Schedule daily extractions and you build a comprehensive archive of what the tech community cares about over weeks and months.
What front page extraction delivers:
- ✓ Daily tech pulse capture: Extract the front page at the same time each day to create a consistent record of what the tech community considers most important.
- ✓ Source domain analysis: See which websites consistently reach the HN front page - personal blogs, major publications, GitHub repos, or startup announcements.
- ✓ Engagement benchmarking: Score and comment counts tell you how much discussion a topic generates. Track which themes drive the deepest conversations.
- ✓ Trend archiving: The front page is ephemeral. Scheduled extractions preserve what appeared and when, creating an analyzable timeline of tech discourse.
| Position | News Title | News Link | Source |
|---|
| #1 | Show HN: A new framework for building web apps | github.com/user/framework | github.com |
| #2 | The state of AI in 2024 | techcrunch.com/ai-2024 | techcrunch.com |
| #3 | Why Rust is winning | blog.rust-lang.org/future | blog.rust-lang.org |
| #4 | Inside the latest startup funding boom | forbes.com/startups-2024 | forbes.com |
| #5 | How to optimize your database queries | medium.com/@engineer/db-tips | medium.com |
No API setup and no Algolia integration needed. The robot reads the HN front page and delivers structured post data.
- A free Browse AI account (no credit card required).
- The Hacker News front page URL (news.ycombinator.com).
1
Sign up for free
Create your Browse AI account in under a minute. No credit card required. You will find this prebuilt robot in the robot library ready to use.
2
Paste the Hacker News URL
Navigate to Hacker News. You can use the main front page, the 'newest' page, 'best' page, or 'show' page. Copy the URL.
3
Run the robot
Click run. The robot loads the Hacker News page and extracts every visible post - position, title, link, and source domain.
4
Connect integrations or export your data
Your Hacker News dataset is captured. Export to Google Sheets for trend tracking, sync to Airtable for a tech news database, or route through Zapier to build daily tech digests from front page data.
What can you do with Hacker News front page data?
Structured HN front page data enables tech trend analysis and industry monitoring:
- Daily tech briefings: Extract the front page each morning and generate a digest of the top stories. Share with your team as a daily tech intelligence brief.
- Content topic validation: Before writing a technical blog post, check if similar topics recently appeared on the HN front page. Front page topics have proven audience interest.
- Source influence mapping: Track which domains appear on the front page most frequently. These are the publications and blogs that the tech community trusts and amplifies.
- Score distribution analysis: Study how scores distribute across front page posts. What is the minimum score needed to stay on the front page? How quickly do posts rise and fall?
- Comment thread mining: Posts with high comment counts contain rich discussion. Use extracted data to identify the most-discussed topics for deeper qualitative analysis.
- Weekend vs. weekday patterns: Compare front page topics across different days. Technical deep-dives may dominate weekends while business news dominates weekdays.
📰
Tech team leads and CTOs
Keep your engineering team informed about what the broader tech community is discussing. Daily front page extractions replace manual browsing.
📊
Technology trend analysts
Build time-series data of tech community attention. Analyze which topics gain and lose interest over weeks and months.
📝
Content marketers in tech
Validate content ideas against what the HN community finds interesting. Front page data tells you what resonates with technical audiences.
🚀
Startup founders
Monitor the HN front page for relevant industry developments, competitor mentions, and emerging technology conversations.
Each front page post provides:
| Field | What it contains |
|---|
| Position | Rank position on the Hacker News front page (#1, #2, #3, etc.). |
| News Title | Title of the Hacker News submission. |
| News Link | The website URL the post links to. |
| Source | The domain of the website being linked to. |
Front page data shows post summaries and engagement metrics. For full comment threads, pair front page extraction with individual discussion page scraping.
Frequently asked questions
How is this different from the keyword search scraper?
This robot captures the current front page - whatever is trending right now. The keyword scraper finds historical posts matching specific search terms.
How often does the front page change?
The HN front page evolves continuously as posts gain and lose votes. Extracting 2-3 times per day captures the major cycles.
Can I extract the 'Best' or 'Show HN' pages too?
Yes. Navigate to any HN listing page - front page, best, new, show, ask - and copy the URL. The robot extracts whatever page you provide.
Does it capture the post URLs?
Yes. The robot extracts both the source URL (where the story links to) and the Hacker News discussion URL for each post.
Is this Hacker News scraper free?
Browse AI's free plan includes credits to run this robot. No credit card required.
Front page data captures what is trending now - combine with keyword search and other platforms for complete tech intelligence:
- Hacker News keyword scraper - Complement front page monitoring with keyword-specific searches to track topics that may not reach the front page.
- Reddit search scraper - Combine Hacker News tech community data with Reddit's broader discussion base for multi-platform social listening.
- Google News scraper - Cross-reference HN front page topics with Google News to see how tech community interests compare to mainstream coverage.
Capture the Hacker News front page daily
Posts, scores, discussions - structured data from the tech community's front page.
