🇨🇭 Part of the Swiss Public Data MCP Portfolio

📡 hn-tech-signal-mcp

MCP server for global tech & AI signal intelligence — aggregates HackerNews, arXiv, Lobste.rs and GitHub into a structured briefing. No API key required.

🇩🇪 Deutsche Version

Demo

Overview

hn-tech-signal-mcp turns any AI assistant into a proactive tech intelligence analyst. The server aggregates four signal layers — research frontier, developer discourse, curated signal, and open-source practice — into a single, structured briefing.

No authentication required. All four data sources are public APIs. Optional: set GITHUB_TOKEN for higher GitHub rate limits (5,000 req/h vs. 60 req/h unauthenticated).

Anchor demo query: "Give me a tech signal digest on AI today — what is happening in research, developer discourse and open source?"

Signal Architecture

FRONTIER    arXiv API      → Latest AI/ML papers (cs.AI, cs.LG, cs.CL, cs.CV)
DISCOURSE   HackerNews     → Six feeds + Algolia search + comment threads
            Lobste.rs      → Curated, lower-noise tech signal
PRACTICE    GitHub Search  → What engineers are actually building right now
            HN Show HN     → What individuals are shipping this week

Think of the four layers as a radar: arXiv shows what's coming over the horizon, HN and Lobste.rs show what practitioners are discussing, and GitHub shows what teams are actually shipping.

Within the discourse layer there are two levels of depth. The feeds and the search tell you what is being discussed; hn_discussion tells you what is actually being argued — the counter-arguments and the "we tried this in production" replies that carry the real signal.

Features

• 🔬 Research frontier – Latest arXiv papers by category (cs.AI, cs.LG, cs.CL, and more)
• 🔍 arXiv full-text search – Find papers by keyword, title, or author
• 🗣️ HackerNews feeds – top, best, new, Ask HN, Show HN and YC job posts
• 🔎 HackerNews search – Full history via Algolia, with date range filter
• 💬 HackerNews comment threads – Read the actual discussion under a story, nested, with a bounded fetch budget
• 🔧 Lobste.rs hottest – Curated developer signal, filterable by tag
• 🛠️ GitHub trending AI repos – Search by topic, stars, sort by activity or popularity
• 📋 Tech signal digest – One-call cross-source briefing in Markdown
• ☁️ Dual transport – stdio for Claude Desktop, Streamable HTTP for cloud deployment

HackerNews feeds

ask and job are short feeds upstream, so a large limit may return fewer stories than requested.

Prerequisites

• Python 3.11+
• uv or pip
• No API key required
• Optional: GITHUB_TOKEN for higher GitHub rate limits

Installation

# Recommended: uvx (no install step needed)
uvx hn-tech-signal-mcp

# Alternative: pip
pip install hn-tech-signal-mcp

Quickstart

# Start the server (stdio mode for Claude Desktop)
uvx hn-tech-signal-mcp

# With optional GitHub token for higher rate limits
GITHUB_TOKEN=ghp_yourtoken uvx hn-tech-signal-mcp

Try immediately in Claude Desktop:

"Give me a tech signal digest on AI today" "What are the latest cs.AI papers from the last 48 hours?" "What is HackerNews discussing about MCP this week?" "Show me trending GitHub repos for the topic 'ai-agents'"

Configuration

Environment Variables

Claude Desktop Configuration

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "hn-tech-signal": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["hn-tech-signal-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "GITHUB_TOKEN": "ghp_yourtoken_optional"
      }
    }
  }
}

Config file locations:

• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
• Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

After restarting Claude Desktop, all 7 tools are available.

Cloud Deployment (Streamable HTTP)

For use via claude.ai in the browser (e.g. on managed workstations):

Render.com (recommended):

1. Push/fork the repository to GitHub
2. On render.com: New Web Service → connect GitHub repo
3. Optionally set GITHUB_TOKEN in the Render dashboard
4. In claude.ai under Settings → MCP Servers, add: https://your-app.onrender.com/mcp

# Local HTTP mode (binds 127.0.0.1 by default)
MCP_TRANSPORT=streamable_http MCP_PORT=8000 python -m hn_tech_signal_mcp.server

# Public bind (requires bearer token, intended behind a reverse proxy that terminates TLS)
MCP_TRANSPORT=streamable_http \
MCP_HOST=0.0.0.0 \
MCP_BEARER_TOKEN="$(openssl rand -hex 32)" \
python -m hn_tech_signal_mcp.server

Hardening: the server refuses to bind to non-loopback hosts unless MCP_BEARER_TOKEN is set. Run cloud deployments behind a TLS-terminating reverse proxy (Render, Fly, Caddy, …) and treat MCP_BEARER_TOKEN as the shared client secret your proxy enforces.

Architecture

┌─────────────────┐    ┌─────────────────────────────────┐    ┌───────────────────────┐
│  Claude / AI    │────▶│   HN Tech Signal MCP             │────▶│  HackerNews Firebase  │
│  (MCP Host)     │◀────│   (MCP Server)                   │────▶│  HN Algolia Search    │
└─────────────────┘    │                                   │────▶│  arXiv.org (Atom API) │
                       │  8 Tools                          │────▶│  Lobste.rs JSON API   │
                       │  Stdio | Streamable HTTP          │────▶│  GitHub Search API    │
                       └─────────────────────────────────┘    └───────────────────────┘

Architecture decision

This server uses Architecture A (live API only, two paths per source). There is no bulk dump to fall back on.

Rationale (verified live on 2026-07-28 against the official HackerNews API):

• All six feed endpoints ({top,best,new,ask,show,job}stories.json) answer HTTP 200 with 29–500 IDs. No auth, no rate-limit headers, Cache-Control: no-cache.
• HackerNews publishes no bulk export, so caching is entirely this server's responsibility. TTLs live in CACHE_TTL.
• The Firebase API has no search. Historical and full-text queries go through the Algolia index instead — that is the second path, used by hn_search.
• item/<id>.json is one request per item. Feeds and comment threads therefore fan out, which is why both are bounded (HN_MAX_CONCURRENCY, max_comments).

Consequences:

• Every upstream call retries with exponential backoff (2s / 4s / 8s) on network errors, 5xx and 429. Other 4xx fail fast.
• One process-wide pooled httpx.AsyncClient, closed via the FastMCP lifespan.
• Unknown item IDs return HTTP 200 with a null body rather than a 404 — hn_discussion translates that into an explicit "no item found" message.

Project Structure

hn-tech-signal-mcp/
├── src/
│   └── hn_tech_signal_mcp/
│       ├── __init__.py
│       └── server.py          # All 8 tools
├── tests/
│   ├── __init__.py
│   └── test_server.py         # 64 unit + 12 live tests
├── pyproject.toml
├── CHANGELOG.md
├── CONTRIBUTING.md
├── LICENSE
├── README.md                  # This file (English)
└── README.de.md               # German version

MCP Protocol Version

This server speaks two protocol eras over the same endpoint. The client's first request on a connection decides which one applies; a later claim from the other era is refused.