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Ask HN: Will we ever get a HN API?
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...
Considering we have somewhat of a leadership transition for HN, wouldn'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/products that sit on top of a HN layer?
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.
Is there any current official voice on the matter?
I am aware there are 'unofficial' HN APIs, but personally I think the way to go would be some kind of (at most) pseudo-private official API
- minimaxir 13y agoThe 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 13y agoThanks 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 13y agoI don't think it's silly at all to put some things behind auth. There's a fine line between usefulness and stalking.
- dang 13y agoWe're very likely to do something in this area, but we don't yet know when.