Ask HN: Will we ever get a HN API?

by sarreph on 4/7/2014, 4:39 PM with 4 comments

I know this has been mentioned before, and if it has been discussed at length recently, please do inform me of my wrongdoing in re-asking but...

Considering we have somewhat of a leadership transition for HN, wouldn't now be a good time to reconsider the provision of an API with authentication that could allow us hackers to produce what we produce best: really great services/products that sit on top of a HN layer?

I for one, as an iOS dev, would absolutely love to take advantage of a HN API that allows me to make an app that supports not just user-based actions (comments, votes, etc), but also tertiary functions such as notifications and personal analytics.

Is there any current official voice on the matter?

I am aware there are 'unofficial' HN APIs, but personally I think the way to go would be some kind of (at most) pseudo-private official API

  • by minimaxir on 4/7/2014, 4:41 PM

    The Algolia API is the official API: https://hn.algolia.com/api

    It doesn't support authentication/user-based actions. You could still use the public data to derive notifications/personal analytics, though.

  • by dang on 4/7/2014, 6:46 PM

    We're very likely to do something in this area, but we don't yet know when.