Show HN Scraper

Overview

The Show HN Production Scraper is a high-performance, stateless browser automation preset designed for developers, researchers, and tech analysts. It extracts recent Show HN submissions directly from the official Hacker News Algolia API endpoint (https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search_by_date?tags=show_hn&hitsPerPage={$hitsPerPage}&page={$page}). Because it executes in a controlled agent environment with recording disabled and stateless execution enabled, your runs are clean, repeatable, and lightweight.

What it does

• Navigates directly to the targeted Hacker News Algolia API search endpoint with dynamic query parameters.
• Waits for the body selector to mount and validates that the raw response body is present and populated.
• Parses the returned raw text payload into structured JSON and iterates through the core hit array.
• Normalizes each submission record by extracting essential identifiers, metrics, and metadata.
• Filters out malformed entries to ensure only valid submissions with an objectID and title are returned.

Inputs

This automation accepts runtime variables to control pagination and batch sizes:

• hitsPerPage: Determines how many records to fetch per request (default is 100).
• page: Specifies the zero-indexed page number to retrieve for pagination or incremental polling (default is 0).

Output

The preset returns an array of structured JSON objects containing normalized submission fields:

• objectID: The unique Hacker News item identifier.
• title: The trimmed title of the Show HN submission.
• url: The primary external link associated with the project.
• hnUrl: The direct discussion link on news.ycombinator.com.
• author: The username of the submitter.
• createdAt: The ISO timestamp of the submission.
• createdAtUnix: The Unix timestamp integer.
• points: The total score or points accumulated.
• comments: The total number of comments on the item.
• storyText: Any accompanying HTML or text description provided with the submission.
• tags: An array of associated tags (_tags) from the API payload.

How to use

1. Open the preset in your Figranium automation canvas.
2. Review and adjust the hitsPerPage and page variables if you need to fetch a specific batch or page.
3. Execute the task in agent mode.
4. Export or consume the resulting structured JSON payload directly in your data pipeline or application.

Notes

• This preset is strictly read-only and stateless; no browsing sessions, cookies, or recordings are saved.
• The target hostname hn.algolia.com provides a reliable public API backend, ensuring high success rates and rapid response times without triggering anti-bot hurdles.