# Thread

Hacker News

Retrieve one public Hacker News item with a bounded nested comment tree and explicit truncation state.

## Use this tool with your AI agent

1. Copy the prompt
2. Paste it into your agent
3. Tell it what you need

Read https://scrollport.com/start. Use my existing Scrollport connection, or help me connect if needed. Help me use Thread (tool ID: hacker-news.thread). Ask me for the details you need, then show me the result.

**Already connected:** Your agent can use that connection.

**New user:** Your agent will guide you through setup, sign-in and authorisation.

Provider access is included.

Connect your first agent to receive $1 trial credit.

**Job:** [Search Hacker News](https://scrollport.com/tools/hacker-news-api)

**Current price:** $0.0050/request

**Availability:** Ready to run

## Tool details

**About this tool**

Retrieve a Hacker News story, job, poll or comment by exact numeric item ID or canonical item URL and return its nested discussion with configurable depth and comment-count limits. IDs stay strings, comment HTML becomes plain text, hierarchy and canonical links remain explicit, and dead, deleted, partial or truncated states are reported rather than silently omitted.

**Inputs and outputs**

### Input

`id_or_url` string · required

Positive numeric HN item ID or canonical news.ycombinator.com item URL.

minLength: 1 · maxLength: 2048

`max_comments` integer · optional

Value supplied for max comments.

minimum: 1 · maximum: 200

`max_depth` integer · optional

Value supplied for max depth.

minimum: 0 · maximum: 8

### Output

`captured_at` string

Returned captured at value.

`item` object

Returned item value.

`max_depth` number

Returned max depth value.

`omitted_comments` number

Returned omitted comments value.

`returned_comments` number

Returned returned comments value.

`source_url` string

Returned source url value.

`total_comments` number

Returned total comments value.

`truncated` boolean

Returned truncated value.

**Example request and output**

Inspect returns this reviewed example, its estimated cost and the current input schema. Run calculates the estimate for your actual input.

### Request

```
{
  "tool_id": "hacker-news.thread",
  "input": {
    "id_or_url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863",
    "max_depth": 2,
    "max_comments": 25
  }
}
```

### Output

```
{
  "item": {
    "id": "8863",
    "type": "story",
    "state": "available",
    "title": "My YC app: Dropbox - Throw away your USB drive",
    "author": "dhouston",
    "children": [
      {
        "id": "8865",
        "text": "oh, and a mac port is coming :)",
        "type": "comment",
        "state": "available",
        "author": "dhouston",
        "parent_id": "8863",
        "source_url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8865"
      }
    ],
    "source_url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863"
  },
  "max_depth": 2,
  "truncated": true,
  "source_url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863",
  "captured_at": "2026-08-21T00:00:00.000Z",
  "total_comments": 71,
  "omitted_comments": 46,
  "returned_comments": 25
}
```

**Errors and limitations**

- `not_found`: Hacker News could not find that public item.Use an exact positive item ID or canonical news.ycombinator.com item URL.

---

Canonical page: https://scrollport.com/tools/providers/hacker-news/thread