Hacker News Thread Summarizer

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Fetches top comments from any Hacker News thread and generates a concise summary using Claude AI. No Reddit or HN account required -- just paste a URL and get an instant summary.

What does it do?

1. Takes a Hacker News thread URL as input
2. Fetches top-level comments via the official HN API (no authentication needed)
3. Sends the thread title, body, and comments to Claude API
4. Returns a structured English summary covering key opinions, recommendations, and debates

Example output

{
"url":"https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39865810",
"title":"Backdoor in upstream xz/liblzma leading to SSH server compromise",
"commentCount":20,
"summary":"## Key Points from the XZ/liblzma Backdoor Discussion\n\n### The Attack\nA sophisticated backdoor was discovered in the xz/liblzma compression library..."
}

Input

Setup

This Actor requires one environment variable:

• ANTHROPIC_API_KEY -- Your Anthropic API key. Get one at console.anthropic.com

Set it in the Actor's Settings > Environment Variables on Apify Console.

How much does it cost?

• Apify platform: Minimal -- a single run takes a few seconds of compute
• Claude API: Typically $0.01-0.05 per summary depending on thread length (uses Claude Sonnet)

Use cases

• Quickly catch up on long HN discussions
• Research trending tech topics
• Monitor community reactions to product launches
• Build a digest of HN threads via Apify scheduling

Local development

# Clone and install
pip install-r requirements.txt
# Set up environment
cp .env.example .env
# Edit .env and add your ANTHROPIC_API_KEY
# Run locally
apify run