HN Firehose for iOS

18 Sep, 2026

Saturday morning project: Asked Claude Fable to create a custom app for browsing Hacker News by /newest

Claude was able to one-shot this given a spec and screenshots.

Source here: harrisonpage/hn-firehose

Reading model is simple:

• Open the app
• Scroll from newest to oldest
• Stop when bored

Content is ephemeral. There's value in the unfiltered firehose of submissions, most are low quality but occasional gems surface.

The app talks to one external service: the Algolia HN Search API (hn.algolia.com/api/v1)

PLATFORM

• SwiftUI, Swift concurrency (async/await), @Observable
• iPhone only, portrait only
• Frameworks: SwiftUI, LinkPresentation, SafariServices

FEATURES

• Drop any headline where url is nil effectively removing Ask HN and text-only posts
• Killfile support by word or hostname
• Link previews formed with available Open Graph metadata on long-press
• Menu items: Add to Reading List, Share, Open in Safari

MOCKUP VS REALITY

Mockup generated with Claude Design then handled off to Claude Code:

Claude did a very good job of matching the design. Actual screenshot:

Dark mode:

OUT OF SCOPE

Didn't bother with features I won't use:

• Comments
• Ask HN / text-only posts (no URL to read)
• Points not displayed, not stored, not used for anything
• Login, voting, posting, favoriting, any authenticated HN action
• iPad layout, Mac Catalyst, landscape orientation
• Persistent read state, sync, CloudKit, accounts
• Infinite history / archive / search
• Push notifications, background refresh, widgets
• A backend server of any kind
• Deduplication of repeated URLs

UPDATE 21-SEP-2026

• App renamed from Hacker News Firehose to HN Firehose
• Project has a home page now
• Moved hardcoded killfile into iCloud
• New icons automatically applied: light, dark, tinted

#claude #hackernews