Hn Tech Signal MCP server

🇨🇭 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; hndiscussion 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

Shortened. The full README is on GitHub.