HomeBrew HN – Generate personal context for content ranking
TLDR: Build a quick HN profile to see how little context LLMs need to personalise your feed. Rate 30 posts once, get a permanent ranked homepage you can return to. Our goal was to build a tool that allowed us to test a range of "personal contexts" on a very focused everyday use case for us, reading HN! We are exploring use of personal context with LLMs, specifically what kind of data, how much, and with how much additional effort on the user’s part was needed to get decent results. The test tool was a bit of fun on its own so we re-skinned it and decided to post it here. First time posting…
HomeBrew HN – Generate personal context for content ranking launched on July 3, 2025 with 129 votes, #302 of 9,223 launches that month and more than 95% of that year's launches. The site was still online in September 2026, 1 year on.
In plain words
HomeBrew HN is a tool that personalizes Hacker News rankings based on user preferences. Users rate 30 posts to create a profile, then return to a permanently ranked homepage tailored to their interests. The project explores how much user data and effort are needed for LLMs to effectively personalize content feeds, using daily Hacker News reading as a test case.
written from the facts on this page · September 2026
From the sources
Brew your morning HN
Made in London, because we love HN, by Leo , Lewis , and Steffan . Give usfrom hackernews.coffee
In the maker’s words, at launch
TLDR: Build a quick HN profile to see how little context LLMs need to personalise your feed. Rate 30 posts once, get a permanent ranked homepage you can return to. Our goal was to build a tool that allowed us to test a range of "personal contexts" on a very focused everyday use case for us, reading HN! We are…
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