# Hacker News API: Get discussion > Gets a Hacker News story and its comments in the order shown on the site. The story can be given as a discussion link or as words from its title. Deleted and flagged comments are left out. Unofficial. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Hacker News. - Page: https://fous.com/methods/news.ycombinator.com/get-discussion - Method: `news.ycombinator.com/get_discussion`, version 1 - Website: news.ycombinator.com - Returns: title, link, author, points, comment count, story text, comments with depth, replies and parent - Effect: read (it gets data and changes nothing) - Sign-in: none needed - Cost: 1 credit per completed run (1¢ with pay as you go); failed runs are free - Verified: Nov 2, 2026 ## Inputs | Field | Type | Required | In the run below | Description | |---|---|---|---|---| | `story` | string | yes | `"https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863"` | Hacker News discussion link or words from the story title, for example https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863 or Ask HN: What are you working on? | | `max_comments` | integer | no | `10` | Maximum comments to return, for example 100 (at most 500). Default 100. | ## Output From a run on Oct 23, 2026, shortened. Its input: ```json { "story": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863", "max_comments": 10 } ``` Its output: ```json { "title": "My YC app: Dropbox - Throw away your USB drive", "author": "dhouston", "points": 104, "item_id": 8863, "comments": [ { "link": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224", "text": "I have a few qualms with this app:\n1. For a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem. From Windows or Mac, this FTP account could be accessed through bui…", "depth": 0, "author": "BrandonM", "item_id": 9224, "parent_id": 8863, "posted_at": "2007-04-05T15:16:54Z", "direct_replies": 1 }, { "link": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9272", "text": "1. re: the first part, many people want something plug and play. and even if they were plug and play, the problem is that the user experience (on windows at least) with online drives generally sucks, and you don't have disconnected access.\nwindows for sure doesn't hide latency well (CIFS is bad, web…", "depth": 1, "author": "dhouston", "item_id": 9272, "parent_id": 9224, "posted_at": "2007-04-05T16:47:01Z", "direct_replies": 1 }, { "link": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9479", "text": "You are correct that this presents a very good, easy-to-install piece of functionality for Windows users. The Windows shortcomings that you point out are certainly problems, and I think that your software does a good job of overcoming that.\nThe part about efficient background sync is a good point, t…", "depth": 2, "author": "BrandonM", "item_id": 9479, "parent_id": 9272, "posted_at": "2007-04-06T01:39:04Z", "direct_replies": 0 } ], "posted_at": "2007-04-04T19:16:40Z", "story_text": null, "website_link": "http://www.getdropbox.com/u/2/screencast.html", "comment_count": 71, "discussion_link": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863" } ``` ## Run it From code, with a Fous API key in `FOUS_API_KEY`; the answer's `data` holds the output: ```bash curl https://api.fous.com/v1/runs \ -H "Authorization: Bearer $FOUS_API_KEY" \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d '{"method":"news.ycombinator.com/get_discussion","input":{"story":"https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863","max_comments":10}}' ``` From an AI agent connected to the Fous MCP server: its `run` with the same method and input. To connect one, give it `set up https://fous.com/SKILL.md`. ## Ask your agent - Pull up the Hacker News thread for https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863 with its comments in display order, capped at 50 - Get the full discussion for the HN story titled 'Ask HN: What are you working on?' including comment depth and parent info - I need the comments on the Hacker News post about Show HN side projects, limited to the first 200, with author and points - Fetch the ycombinator story matching 'Why Rust is taking over systems programming' and list its comments with reply structure - Can you grab the Hacker News discussion linked at news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1 and return the top 100 comments without deleted or flagged ones ## Input schema ```json { "type": "object", "required": [ "story" ], "properties": { "story": { "type": "string", "minLength": 1, "description": "Hacker News discussion link or words from the story title, for example https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863 or Ask HN: What are you working on?" }, "max_comments": { "type": "integer", "default": 100, "maximum": 500, "minimum": 0, "description": "Maximum comments to return, for example 100 (at most 500)." } } } ``` ## Output schema ```json { "type": "object", "required": [ "title", "website_link", "author", "points", "comment_count", "posted_at", "story_text", "discussion_link", "item_id", "comments" ], "properties": { "title": { "type": "string" }, "author": { "type": [ "string", "null" ] }, "points": { "type": [ "integer", "null" ] }, "item_id": { "type": "integer" }, "comments": { "type": "array", "items": { "type": "object", "properties": { "link": { "type": "string" }, "text": { "type": "string" }, "depth": { "type": "integer" }, "author": { "type": [ "string", "null" ] }, "item_id": { "type": "integer" }, "parent_id": { "type": "integer" }, "posted_at": { "type": [ "string", "null" ] }, "direct_replies": { "type": "integer" } } } }, "posted_at": { "type": [ "string", "null" ] }, "story_text": { "type": [ "string", "null" ] }, "website_link": { "type": [ "string", "null" ] }, "comment_count": { "type": "integer" }, "discussion_link": { "type": "string" } } } ``` ## See more - [Hacker News API: Search stories](https://fous.com/methods/news.ycombinator.com/search-stories.md): Searches Hacker News stories or comments by words, date range and sort order. Comments include their parent story's website link when one exists; text-only stories have no website link. - [Hacker News API: List stories](https://fous.com/methods/news.ycombinator.com/list-front-page.md): Lists current Hacker News stories in rank order from the top, newest, best, Ask HN, Show HN or jobs list. - [Hacker News API: List Who is hiring posts](https://fous.com/methods/news.ycombinator.com/list-hiring-posts.md): Lists top-level job posts from a monthly Ask HN: Who is hiring? thread in thread order, with post text and the company, roles, location, work arrangement, salary and application contact inferred from each post. - [Hacker News API: Search YC companies](https://fous.com/methods/ycombinator.com/search-companies.md): Searches the Y Combinator company directory by keyword, industry, batch, location, hiring and status, returning companies in directory order. - [Hacker News API: Get YC company profile](https://fous.com/methods/ycombinator.com/get-company.md): Looks up a Y Combinator company by name or YC company page link and returns its profile, founders, social links and open job count. - [The New York Times API: List headlines](https://fous.com/methods/nytimes.com/list-headlines.md): Lists current New York Times headlines with summaries, authors, images and publication times, in the order shown on the chosen section page (top stories or a section). Video-only items, ads and promotions are left out; times come from the section's feed and may be missing. - [TechCrunch API: List headlines](https://fous.com/methods/techcrunch.com/list-headlines.md): Lists the latest TechCrunch story headlines in a section, in page order. Skips video, podcast and event promotion cards. - [TechCrunch API: Read an article](https://fous.com/methods/techcrunch.com/read-article.md): Reads a public TechCrunch article by link or headline and returns its text, authors, dates, section, tags and image. Live blogs return their latest public updates. - [All Hacker News methods](https://fous.com/methods/ycombinator.com.md)