Hacker News Intel

Monitor Hacker News for keywords. On each run, fetch new posts via the HN Algolia API, deduplicate against a local SQLite cache, and send Slack alerts for unseen matches. Run manually or schedule via cron or GitHub Actions.

Step 1: Check Setup

1a. Verify required environment variables

Check that these are set:

• HN_KEYWORDS (required): comma-separated list of keywords to monitor
• SLACK_WEBHOOK (required): Slack Incoming Webhook URL for alerts

If either is missing, stop and tell the user:

• HN_KEYWORDS: list the topics you want to monitor, comma-separated. Example: claude code,LLM agents,deno runtime
• SLACK_WEBHOOK: create an Incoming Webhook at https://api.slack.com/apps. Select your workspace, enable Incoming Webhooks, and copy the URL.

1b. Verify script dependencies