hackernews.author_comments

stable Advanced

Comments written by a Hacker News user.

GET /v1/hackernews/author_comments

What you get#

A list of Hacker News results in Onekey's unified shape, in data (an array). An empty array is a normal, successful answer and is charged like any other; a source that reports "nothing found" as an error returns a free 404 not_found instead.

Pagination: 20 results per page. The response carries a pagination block; send its next_cursor back as the cursor parameter to get the next page. Every page is one call at the price below. See Pagination.

What it costs#

Advanced · 5 credits for a fresh fetch, charged only when it succeeds.
Free when served from cache (0.2 credit for a cached response over 100 KB).
Free if the request is invalid (never charged) or the source fails or reports not found (refunded).

Parameters#

Name	Type	Required	Default	What it is	Constraints
`user`	string	yes	(required)	Hacker News username, e.g. pg	max 15 chars; must match `[A-Za-z0-9_-]{2,15}`; trimmed
`cursor`	string	no	-	Opaque cursor from a previous response's `pagination.next_cursor`. Omit for the first page.	-

Request#

curl "https://api.onekey.dev/v1/hackernews/author_comments?user=pg" \
  -H "x-api-key: YOUR_API_KEY"

Try it

Add your key to run this call right here. No key? Get one free. The key stays in this tab.

Recorded response#

A real Hacker News response, recorded and returned in Onekey's shape. Fields the platform does not provide are null.

json

{
  "success": true,
  "data": [
    {
      "content": {
        "id": "39667625",
        "title": "The Best Essay",
        "url": "https://paulgraham.com/best.html",
        "text": "In earlier drafts I wrote \"the existence of some set of best essays follows necessarily\" but it sounded so pedantic that it didn't seem worth keeping just to protect myself from being accused of not understanding the distinction between a partial and total order. I assumed anyone reading it in good faith would understand what I was saying.",
        "createdAt": "2024-03-11T12:57:11Z",
        "threadId": "39662615"
      },
      "author": {
        "username": "pg"
      },
      "engagement": {
        "likes": null
      }
    },
    {
      "content": {
        "id": "37278578",
        "title": "If you're interested in eye-tracking, I'm interested in funding you",
        "url": "https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1695596853864321055",
        "text": "It's not available yet. And in any case if this is the future there should be multiple companies doing it, not just Apple.",
        "createdAt": "2023-08-27T01:29:42Z",
        "threadId": "37278345"
      },
      "author": {
        "username": "pg"
      },
      "engagement": {
        "likes": null
      }
    }
  ],
  "metadata": {
    "platform": "hackernews",
    "endpoint": "author_comments",
    "cached": false,
    "stale": false,
    "age_s": 0,
    "fetched_at": "2026-01-01T12:00:00+00:00",
    "credits_charged": 5,
    "request_id": "7f3a9c2e5b1d4c8fa2e6d0b9c4f18e37"
  },
  "error": null
}

Field mapping#

How this endpoint's source fields become Onekey's unified schema. Fields the source lacks come back as null.

Source path	Onekey field	Transform
`objectID`	`content.id`	-
`author`	`author.username`	-
`story_title`	`content.title`	-
`story_url`	`content.url`	`safeUrl`
`comment_text`	`content.text`	`stripHtml`
`created_at`	`content.createdAt`	`toIsoDate`
`story_id`	`content.threadId`	`toString`
`points`	`engagement.likes`	`toNumber`

Caching and freshness#

Fresh for about 2 minutes. Repeat calls in that window are served from cache and are free.
Between 2 minutes and 15 minutes the cached copy is still served instantly and marked stale: true while Onekey refreshes it in the background.
If the source is down when a refresh is needed, the last copy can be served for up to 1 hour more (marked stale).
A "not found" is remembered for 1 minute and is free.
The cache is shared across all customers, which is what keeps repeat calls cheap.

What can go wrong#

Status	Code	What to do
401	`unauthorized`	Check the `x-api-key` header.
402	`insufficient_credits`	Add credits; your balance must cover the price.
404	`not_found`	Unknown endpoint path.
422	`invalid_params`	Fix the parameters using the table above. Free.
429	`rate_limited`	Wait `Retry-After` seconds, then retry.
502	`upstream_error`	The source failed. Refunded; retry with backoff.

See Errors for the full list and retry guidance.

Status: stable (verified against the live source).