

Ask HN: Will we ever get a HN API? - sarreph

I know this has been mentioned before, and if it has been discussed at length recently, please do inform me of my wrongdoing in re-asking but...<p>Considering we have somewhat of a leadership transition for HN, wouldn&#x27;t now be a good time to reconsider the provision of an API with authentication that could allow us hackers to produce what we produce best: really great services&#x2F;products that sit on top of a HN layer?<p>I for one, as an iOS dev, would absolutely love to take advantage of a HN API that allows me to make an app that supports not just user-based actions (comments, votes, etc), but also tertiary functions such as notifications and personal analytics.<p>Is there any current official voice on the matter?<p><i></i> I am aware there are &#x27;unofficial&#x27; HN APIs, but personally I think the way to go would be some kind of (at most) pseudo-private official API <i></i>
======
minimaxir
The Algolia API is the official API:
[https://hn.algolia.com/api](https://hn.algolia.com/api)

It doesn't support authentication/user-based actions. You could still use the
public data to derive notifications/personal analytics, though.

~~~
sarreph
Thanks for this! Of course, pretty silly thing to suggest I need
authentication to notify people...

However, I was attempting to insinuate that without auth there's little use of
diving into an app's notification because (as a user), you'd most likely want
to reply/vote to at least some of the replies!

~~~
gregcohn
I don't think it's silly at all to put some things behind auth. There's a fine
line between usefulness and stalking.

------
dang
We're very likely to do something in this area, but we don't yet know when.

