Hacker News Engagement Skill

Find relevant Hacker News discussions and draft helpful responses that position TeamDay naturally.

When to Use

• User asks to find Hacker News discussions about AI agents, developer tools, startups, etc.
• User wants to monitor HN for engagement opportunities or product mentions
• User asks to draft a reply to a HN thread
• User says "check HN" or "find Hacker News conversations"
• Periodic social listening for brand mentions or relevant tech discussions

Scripts

Search Hacker News

bun .claude/skills/hackernews/scripts/hn-search.ts "<query>" [options]

Option	Default	Description
--sort=VALUE	popularity	popularity, date
--time=VALUE	week	day, week, month, year, all
--limit=N	25	Number of results (max 100)
--type=VALUE	story	story, comment, all

Read Thread + Comments

bun .claude/skills/hackernews/scripts/hn-thread.ts "<item_id>" [--depth=N]

Fetches the full post body and comment tree. Use this to understand the conversation before drafting a response.

Target Topics

These topics are most relevant to TeamDay's domain on Hacker News:

Topic	Relevance	Search Queries
AI Agents	Core	"ai agents", "ai agent framework", "autonomous agent"
Claude / Anthropic	Core	"claude code", "claude agent", "anthropic", "claude sdk"
MCP Protocol	Core	"mcp server", "model context protocol", "mcp tools"
AI Dev Tools	High	"ai coding", "ai developer tools", "copilot alternative"
LLM Applications	High	"llm application", "llm production", "ai workflow"
Startups / SaaS	Medium	"ai startup", "saas ai", "ai product launch"
Show HN	High	"Show HN" posts about AI tools (engagement goldmine)

Workflow

Phase 1: Discovery

Run targeted searches across Hacker News:

# Broad search for AI agent discussions
bun .claude/skills/hackernews/scripts/hn-search.ts "ai agents" --sort=date --time=week

# Technical discussions about Claude and MCP
bun .claude/skills/hackernews/scripts/hn-search.ts "claude code" --sort=date --time=week

# Show HN posts — prime engagement opportunities
bun .claude/skills/hackernews/scripts/hn-search.ts "Show HN ai" --sort=date --time=week

# Comments discussing pain points
bun .claude/skills/hackernews/scripts/hn-search.ts "ai automation" --type=comment --sort=date

Phase 2: Qualify Opportunities

High-value threads (prioritize):

• "Show HN" posts about AI tools (builders are active and responsive)
• "Ask HN" questions about AI agents, automation, or developer tools
• Technical discussions comparing AI platforms or frameworks
• Posts with 10+ comments and growing
• Threads where users share pain points that TeamDay solves

Skip these:

• Threads older than 2 weeks (HN discussions die fast)
• Posts with 0 comments and low score (no audience)
• Pure research/academic discussions (wrong audience for a product)
• Heated political/ethical AI debates (high risk, low reward)

Phase 3: Deep-Read Promising Threads

bun .claude/skills/hackernews/scripts/hn-thread.ts "12345678"

Understand:

1. What is OP actually building or struggling with?
2. What answers already exist in the comments?
3. Is there a technical gap TeamDay could fill?
4. What's the tone — technical, casual, skeptical?

Phase 4: Draft Response

HN Tone Guidelines (CRITICAL — HN is different from Reddit):

• Be deeply technical. HN readers are engineers, founders, and researchers.
• Never use marketing language. No "revolutionize", "game-changing", "unlock potential".
• Share technical details: architecture, trade-offs, what didn't work.
• Be honest about limitations. HN respects intellectual honesty above all.
• Keep it concise. HN favors dense, information-rich comments.

Phase 5: Report

Save engagement reports to track what's been done:

# Save to docs
Write to: docs/hackernews/YYYY-MM-DD-hn-engagement.md

Rate Limits

The HN Algolia API is generous — approximately 10,000 requests per hour with no authentication required. Rate limiting is unlikely to be an issue for normal usage.