hn-hiring-trends-mcp

Which skills are tech companies hiring for, and which are rising? An MCP server that reads every Hacker News "Ask HN: Who is hiring?" thread (one per month, 250–500 job posts each) and turns them into skill demand trends, remote and salary stats, and searchable job posts.

No API keys. One line to install.

You:    Which skills gained the most demand on HN hiring threads this year?
Claude: [rising_skills(months=12)]
        • "AI agents" went from 11.3% to 14.7% of job posts (+3.4 pts); in
          September 2026 alone it was in 17.4% of posts.
        • Python +2.5 pts, LLM +2.1 pts.
        • Frontend fell 4.3 pts and React 2.7 pts.

_{Summarized from real tool output: Oct 2025–Sep 2026, 3,788 job posts.}

Why

How it works

flowchart LR
    C[Claude / MCP client] -->|tool call| S[hn-hiring-trends-mcp]
    S --> A[HN Algolia API: monthly threads + all top-level job posts]
    A --> P[Parse: company, remote/hybrid/onsite, visa, salary range]
    P --> K[Skill matching: ~70 tuned patterns, or any phrase you pass]
    K -->|shares, trends, matching posts| C

A post "mentions" a skill once no matter how often it repeats it, so shares are "% of job posts asking for X". Ambiguous words get tuned rules: Go doesn't match "go-to-market", C doesn't match "Series C", Java doesn't match "JavaScript". Past months never change and are cached on disk (~/.cache/hn-hiring-trends).

Install

Requires uv.

Claude Code

claude mcp add hn-hiring-trends -- uvx hn-hiring-trends-mcp

Claude Desktop / Cursor (claude_desktop_config.json / .cursor/mcp.json)

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "hn-hiring-trends": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["hn-hiring-trends-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Tools

Prompts: monthly_hiring_report (a shareable monthly summary), skill_outlook ("should I learn X, Y or Z?").

Try these

• "Should I learn Rust, Go or Elixir? Use 18 months of HN hiring data."
• "Write this month's HN hiring report."
• "Find remote Python jobs that mention LLMs and sponsor visas."
• "What's the median salary in posts that mention Kubernetes?"

Limits

• One slice of the market: HN skews toward startups, remote work and US/EU tech.
• Skill matching is keyword-based; context like "nice to have" is not separated from "required".
• Salaries are parsed from stated yearly ranges only (about a quarter of posts state one).

Development

uv sync --extra dev
uv run pytest                          # offline tests with a mocked Algolia API
uv run python scripts/smoke_live.py    # live check against hn.algolia.com
uv run --with rich python scripts/demo.py 12   # terminal demo (vhs docs/demo.tape records the GIF)
npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector uv run hn-hiring-trends-mcp   # click-through UI

MIT © Ali Altunar