Hacker News bot that automated archive finding and commenting
Hi everyone, I build this bot to automate the process of going to wayback machine (or archive.ph) to find the archive link for posts with articles that have subscription blocks The idea was to have this run on a server and then I wouldn’t have this daily annoyance, the bot was banned, so its not currently active, but I still wanted to show it off and get some feedback Disclaimer : HN doesn't allow bots, so please don’t use this to run your own HN bot.
Hacker News bot that automated archive finding and commenting launched on September 11, 2022 with 52 votes, #889 of 3,464 launches that month and more than 75% of that year's launches. The site was still online in September 2026, 4 years on.
In plain words
This bot automates finding archived versions of paywalled articles on Hacker News by searching the Wayback Machine and Archive.ph. It was designed to run on a server and post archive links as comments, eliminating manual searching for subscription-blocked content. The bot was banned from Hacker News, which prohibits automated bots on its platform. The creator released the code for feedback purposes only, with a disclaimer against running similar bots.
written from the facts on this page · September 2026
From the sources
A Bot that searches for and posts links to archived versions of articles after scanning all of HackerNews' top articles for those that contain a link to a site that requires a subscription. - ShlomoStept/hn_bot
Does a similar job
all alternatives →- WHWayback HN, a cross between the Wayback Machine and Hacker News2015 · waybackhn.com · ▲503
- AWA Way To Hack HN's Karma2012 · ▲472
I submitted a link, when someone clicks on it I get an up-vote for this article. I don't want people to misuse this I just want to bring attention to this problem. This is the link I used that up-votes this: http://news.ycombinator.com/vote?for=3742742&dir=up&...
I made a search engine for Hacker News2024 · hackernews.demo.vectara.com · ▲211I love HN but always felt the search with algolia is okay but does have some limitations. Since I work at Vectara I decided to try and create a better search for HN. It's based on data from roughly the last 6 months of HN stories and comments. Would love to hear feedback and how useful this is relative to the existing search.
My recommendation engine for Hacker News2023 · hn-recommend.julienc.me · ▲314Hi! I’m Julien and I built a recommendation engine for Hacker News. I feel like this website is a gold mine. Every day, I find some very interesting stories about a topic. And sometimes, I want to find other stories covering that same topic but I can’t. Hacker News has years of history of awesome discussion and ressources. Unfortunately, I think HN Algolia isn’t helpful in searching these old threads. As a student, I want to learn a lot from this website. This is why I created HN Recommend. Input a sentence or the URL of an article, and get the most popular and similar posts from Hacker…
Hacker News, Without AISep 2026 · unslop.news · ▲197Source: https://github.com/leiDnedyA/hn-without-ai
- FHFake Hacker News – See what HN has to say before you post2023 · fakehn.com · ▲107
Hi HN! I’ve been lurking for a while, but out of fear of being steamrolled by HN readers or maybe just natural introversion, I’ve always been too scared to post or comment. Which is why 1. this is my first real Hacker News submission 2. my friend Michael and I built "Fake" Hacker News, a place to post and see what AI-generated HN comments might say. Here’s a video of me using fakeHN to test this very submission: https://www.loom.com/share/4b9f4f9d7c77489a86baeb92ec55a1ed?... And an example of one of our generated posts:…
Source: Show HN post ↗
Launched alongside, September 2022
the whole month →- IM
Life & fun · 2022 · dogbunnypuzzle.com
A couple of years ago, I had an interesting idea. What if there was a marketplace where all the underlying tech was open-source? The order management system, the storefront, customer support, etc. The marketplace would simply connect to the seller’s infra instead of locking them in. If, for some reason, the seller is removed from the marketplace, their software stays with them and they can continue accepting orders directly. This model can be used to disrupt any marketplace from AirBNB to UberEats: building tech for home renters and restaurants and later, leveraging that to build a competing…
Dev tools · 2022 · openship.org
