# Hacker News Profile API (https://www.socialcrawl.dev/platforms/hackernews/profile)

> Returns public profile information for a Hacker News user — id, username, bio (`about`), karma, and account-creation date — mapped to the unified Author schema. HN has no follower / following / posts_count / verified concept, so those unified fields resolve to null.

TL;DR: `GET /v1/hackernews/profile` costs 1 credit per call and returns SocialCrawl's unified JSON schema. Single x-api-key auth, 100 free credits on signup.

## Parameters

| Parameter | Required | Description |
| --- | --- | --- |
| `handle` | yes | Hacker News username (case-sensitive, e.g. `pg` or `kogir`). |

## Code example

```bash
curl "https://www.socialcrawl.dev/v1/hackernews/profile?handle=pg" \
  -H "x-api-key: sc_YOUR_API_KEY"
```

## FAQ

### How do I get a Hacker News user profile with an API?

Send a GET request to /v1/hackernews/profile with the username in the handle parameter. SocialCrawl returns that user's karma score, account creation date, and about text, normalized into the unified author schema shared across platforms.

### What fields does the Hacker News User API return?

Username, karma score, created timestamp (account age), and the about text the user wrote on their profile. These map onto the SocialCrawl author schema so HN users line up with profiles from Reddit, GitHub, and other sources.

### Where do I get the user handle from?

Handles come from the author field on stories and comments returned by the search, story, and comments endpoints, or from a Hacker News user URL — the value after user?id= on news.ycombinator.com. Pass it directly as the handle parameter.

### Can I use this to check author credibility?

Yes. Karma and account age are common signals for weighting an author when ranking discussions or filtering low-effort accounts. Fetch the profile for the authors surfaced by search and join it into your scoring pipeline.

### How much does the Hacker News User API cost?

Each profile request costs 1 credit on the standard tier. New accounts get 100 free credits with no credit card required, enough to look up around 100 user profiles while you build your analysis pipeline.

See the full Hacker News API: https://www.socialcrawl.dev/platforms/hackernews

## Pricing

- Standard endpoints: 1 credit per call
- Advanced endpoints: 5 credits per call
- Premium endpoints: 10 credits per call
- 100 free credits on signup, no credit card required. Cached responses cost 0 credits. Credit packs never expire.
- Full pricing: https://www.socialcrawl.dev/pricing

## Explore with AI

Questions this API answers, phrased for an AI assistant:

- How to get a Hacker News user profile and karma with an API
- What does the SocialCrawl Hacker News User endpoint return?