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How to connect Hackernews to Claude

Connect Claude Web, Desktop and Cowork to Hackernews MCP. Summarize today's top hacker news stories, find recent posts about ai startups, and more using natural language, with authentication handled for you.

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Hacker News is a tech-focused news aggregator by Y Combinator featuring user-driven stories and discussions on startups and programming. It's a go-to source for trending tech news and thoughtful community insights.

14 Tools

Introduction

Claude is Anthropic's AI assistant, available on the web, in the desktop app, and on mobile. Cowork is its agent for knowledge work, and it runs on all of those surfaces too. Connected to your apps, Claude can work with your files and services to accomplish complex tasks on your behalf.

This guide walks you through the easiest and most secure way to connect your Hackernews account to Claude via Composio Connect, enabling it to summarize today's top Hacker News stories, find recent posts about AI startups, show comments from this frontpage post, and more such actions on your behalf without compromising your account security.

Setup is the same on Claude Web, Desktop, and Cowork, and you only need to do it once. The connector is tied to your account, so it's available in all three.

Also integrate Hackernews with

Claude CodeOpenAI Agents SDKClaude Agent SDKCodexOpenClawHermesAtomic AgentGoogle ADKLangChainVercel AI SDKMastra AILlamaIndexCrewAIPydantic AIAutoGen

Connecting Hackernews to Claude Web, Desktop, and Cowork

Two ways to add the Composio connector. Pick whichever you prefer.

1. Add with one click

Click the button. Claude opens with the Composio connector filled in. Click Add, then go to step 2.

Add to Claude

Add manually

In Claude Desktop, click Customize in the left sidebar, then select Connectors and click the + icon at the top.

Claude Desktop connectors screen with Add custom connector selected

Click Add custom connector and paste in the Composio MCP server URL:

bash
https://connect.composio.dev/mcp
Add custom connector dialog with Composio MCP server URL

2. Authorize in your browser

Click Connect. You'll be redirected to a browser window where you can authorize Composio to continue.

Composio authorization screen for Claude Web, Desktop, and Cowork

3. Connect your Hackernews account

Back in Claude, ask it to connect to Hackernews or give it any Hackernews-related task.

For example, ask Claude to:

  • "Summarize today's top Hacker News stories"
  • "Find recent posts about AI startups"
  • "Show comments from this frontpage post"

It will prompt you to authenticate and authorize access.

That's it. Composio's tools are now available in Claude, and your Hackernews account is ready to use.

What is the Hackernews Claude Connector, and what's possible with it?

The Hackernews MCP server is an implementation of the Model Context Protocol that connects your AI agent and assistants like Claude, Cursor, etc directly to the Hacker News platform. It provides structured and secure access to top tech stories, user profiles, and community discussions, so your agent can fetch trending posts, search for news, analyze user activity, and surface the latest updates on your behalf.

  • Frontpage highlights and trending tech stories: Instantly get the current frontpage posts so your agent can summarize or monitor what's hot in tech right now.
  • Smart post search and discovery: Search Hacker News posts by keyword, filter results, and explore relevant discussions tailored to your interests.
  • Real-time updates on new posts: Let your agent fetch the latest or today's posts, keeping you in the loop on breaking news and emerging trends.
  • In-depth post and comment analysis: Retrieve detailed information about any specific Hacker News item, including stories and comment threads, for deeper insights.
  • User profile lookup and insights: Access details about any Hacker News user, helping you analyze activity, contributions, or community reputation.

Troubleshooting

1. Why does Claude not use the Composio connector for Hackernews?

The connector can show as connected, but Claude must use it in each Hackernews conversation.

  • Click + at the lower left of the chat, or type /.
  • Hover Connectors.
  • Turn on Composio.
  • Ask Claude to connect to Hackernews again.

2. Why does Claude show an MCP server error before Hackernews connects?

Claude can show Couldn't reach the MCP server or Authorization with the MCP server failed when you add the connector for Hackernews.

  • Check that the connector URL is https://connect.composio.dev/mcp.
  • Connectors run from Anthropic's cloud, so your device network is usually not the problem.
  • Add the connector again from Customize > Connectors, then ask Claude to connect Hackernews.
  • If it fails again, send the error and the ofid_ reference id to support@composio.dev.

3. Why does the Hackernews authorization link not work?

The Composio connector is one server. Your Hackernews account connects separately when Claude asks for it.

  • If the browser does not open, or the link expires, ask Claude to retry the Hackernews connection.
  • Composio creates a fresh Hackernews authorization link.
  • Open that link in your browser and finish the Hackernews sign-in.

4. Why do Hackernews actions fail after they worked before?

The Hackernews connection can expire or lose permission.

  • Ask Claude to inspect the Hackernews connection.
  • If the connection is unhealthy, disconnect it when Claude prompts you.
  • Reconnect the Hackernews account and retry the action.
  • If Claude shows a permission prompt, approve it before Claude changes data in Hackernews.
  • If the action still fails with a permission error, check that the connected account has that permission in Hackernews itself.

5. How do I switch to a different Hackernews account?

Claude can manage the Hackernews connection for you.

  • Ask Claude to disconnect or delete the current Hackernews account.
  • Ask Claude to connect Hackernews again.
  • Open the new Composio authorization link for Hackernews.
  • Sign in with the other Hackernews account in the browser.
  • After the account connects, ask Claude to retry the Hackernews task.

6. Why is my Hackernews connection missing in Claude Desktop or on a Team plan?

The connector belongs to your Claude account, so your Hackernews connection works in Claude Web, Desktop, and Cowork.

  • In Claude Desktop, open Customize > Connectors.
  • Next to Composio, click ⋮ and click Clear cache.
  • If Hackernews tools still do not appear, click ⋮, disconnect, remove the connector, and add it again.
  • On Team or Enterprise, an Owner or Primary Owner must enable the connector before you can connect Hackernews.
TOOLS

Supported Tools

Every Hackernews action and event your agent gets out of the box.

Get Ask HN Story IDs

Get up to 200 latest Ask HN story IDs from Hacker News.

Get Best HackerNews Stories

Get up to 500 best story IDs from HackerNews ranked by score.

Get Hacker News Item

Tool to get a Hacker News item by its unique ID from the Firebase API.

Get Hackernews Item

Get a specific item from Hacker News using its ID.

Get Job Story IDs

Get up to 200 latest job story IDs from Hacker News.

Get Latest Hackernews Posts

Get the latest posts from Hacker News based on optional filters.

Get Max Item ID

Tool to get the current largest item ID from Hacker News.

Get New Hacker News Stories

Get up to 500 newest story IDs from Hacker News.

Get Show HN Stories

Tool to retrieve up to 200 latest Show HN story IDs from Hacker News.

Get Top HackerNews Stories

Get up to 500 top story IDs from HackerNews including jobs.

Get Hacker News Updates

Get recently changed items and user profiles from Hacker News.

Get Hacker News User

Retrieve a Hacker News user's public profile by their username.

Get HackerNews User by Username

Tool to get a user profile by their case-sensitive username from the HackerNews Firebase API.

Search Hackernews Posts

Search Hacker News posts using full-text search powered by Algolia.

FRAMEWORKS

How to build Hackernews MCP Agent with another framework

Claude Code logo

Claude Code

Use Hackernews MCP with Claude Code

OpenAI Agents SDK logo

OpenAI Agents SDK

Use Hackernews MCP with OpenAI Agents SDK

Claude Agent SDK logo

Claude Agent SDK

Use Hackernews MCP with Claude Agent SDK

Codex logo

Codex

Use Hackernews MCP with Codex

OpenClaw logo

OpenClaw

Use Hackernews MCP with OpenClaw

Hermes logo

Hermes

Use Hackernews MCP with Hermes

Atomic Agent logo

Atomic Agent

Use Hackernews MCP with Atomic Agent

Google ADK logo

Google ADK

Use Hackernews MCP with Google ADK

LangChain logo

LangChain

Use Hackernews MCP with LangChain

Vercel AI SDK logo

Vercel AI SDK

Use Hackernews MCP with Vercel AI SDK

Mastra AI logo

Mastra AI

Use Hackernews MCP with Mastra AI

LlamaIndex logo

LlamaIndex

Use Hackernews MCP with LlamaIndex

CrewAI logo

CrewAI

Use Hackernews MCP with CrewAI

Pydantic AI logo

Pydantic AI

Use Hackernews MCP with Pydantic AI

AutoGen logo

AutoGen

Use Hackernews MCP with AutoGen

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

With a standalone Hackernews MCP server, the agents and LLMs can only access a fixed set of Hackernews tools tied to that server. However, with the Composio Tool Router, agents can dynamically load tools from Hackernews and many other apps based on the task at hand, all through a single MCP endpoint.

Yes, you can. Claude Cowork fully supports MCP integration. You get structured tool calling, message history handling, and model orchestration while Tool Router takes care of discovering and serving the right Hackernews tools.

Yes, absolutely. You can configure which Hackernews scopes and actions are allowed when connecting your account to Composio. You can also bring your own OAuth credentials or API configuration so you keep full control over what the agent can do.

All sensitive data such as tokens, keys, and configuration is fully encrypted at rest and in transit. Composio is SOC 2 Type 2 compliant and follows strict security practices so your Hackernews data and credentials are handled as safely as possible.

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