About Hacksnap

Sources and summaries

Stories and comments come from Hacker News. When an external article can be retrieved, Hacksnap summarizes its text separately from the discussion. For HN text posts and articles it cannot retrieve, the brief is limited to the material available. The comment count links to the full Hacker News discussion.

Briefs are generated by AI and can miss context or make mistakes. Check the original article and linked comments before relying on a claim. A story may appear before its summary is ready.

Discussion coverage

Hacksnap excludes deleted, dead and empty comments, then selects comments from active branches within a size limit. It includes available parent comments when selecting a reply. Long articles and comment inputs may be shortened. The resulting brief covers a sample of the discussion, not every comment or a vote by the HN community.

Discussion themes

Newly analyzed stories group the discussion into themes. Each theme summarizes a topic raised by the selected comments.

Themes describe the available sample. They are not an exhaustive ranking, a measure of correctness, or a vote by the HN community.

Analysis time and coverage describe the discussion sample separately from the article brief. Older stories retain their original discussion summaries; this feature is not backfilled.

Story order

Latest lists summarized AI stories by when they were added to Hacksnap, newest first. Topic feeds use the same order. Monthly archives keep older stories accessible. Hacker News points and comments describe the stored discussion activity and do not control the feed order.

Skepticism

The legacy skepticism label is separate from explicit agreement. Low skepticism does not mean agreement. High means the sampled comments lean doubtful, critical or concerned about the story’s subject. Low includes mixed, neutral and positive reactions. This is a qualitative AI estimate from at most ten selected comments, separate from the broader sample used for the discussion brief. It is not a numeric score or a claim of consensus. When no usable comments are available, Hacksnap shows that instead of guessing.

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