There are ways to implement that kind of thing in a relatively straightforward manner. It does, however, require some kind of non-static element in the site if

There are ways to implement that kind of thing in a relatively straightforward manner. It does, however, require some kind of non-static element in the site if you want comments embedded in the site or page. Most SSGs have some kind of plugin system (both Pelican and Lektor certainly do) that would allow you do something like what you want with the HN integration you're considering. Alternatively, you could use something like Isso (https://github.com/posativ/isso https://github.com/posativ/isso), Kaiju (https://github.com/spf13/kaiju https://github.com/spf13/kaiju), or Hashover (https://github.com/jacobwb/hashover https://github.com/jacobwb/hashover). I don't use any of these, so I can't really tell you how good they are, but they're options, and far from the only options.