this might help a little: https://github.com/wting/hackernews
In Can anyone tech me how to make a forum like this onewting
hackernews
Arc2013–2026
wting / hackernews
hackernews
Hacker News web site source code mirror.
90Distinct people
99Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
656GitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
Hacker News web site source code mirror.
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use was verified in the last source check.
What people are saying
No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.
No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.
Also in these discussions
- arclanguage/anarki · linked in 4 of the same discussions
Mentioned in the same Hacker News threads. That is not proof they are substitutes.
This week on Hacker News
Nov 8–Nov 15 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/15/2026, 12:45:45 PM UTC.
No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.
Mentions over time
HN mentions by year99 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2013-01-04 06:10:04 UTC to 2026-03-02 19:38:40 UTC.
* An incomplete calendar period is marked with an outlined bar. Its count is not directly comparable with a full period.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | 2013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 16 | 0 | 16 |
| 2014 | 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 14 | 0 | 14 |
| 2015 | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 12 | 1 | 11 |
| 2016 | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 8 | 0 | 8 |
| 2017 | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 9 | 0 | 9 |
| 2018 | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 8 | 0 | 8 |
| 2019 | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 2020 | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 3 | 0 | 3 |
| 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 9 | 1 | 8 |
| 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 4 | 0 | 4 |
| 2023 | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 7 | 0 | 7 |
| 2024 | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 5 | 1 | 4 |
| 2025 | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2026 (partial) | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
From the project README
An excerpt from the repository, fetched Nov 13, 2026.
Read the project’s introduction
Note
Instructions copied from the original download site.
The files from the tarball in step 2 have been copied into this repository.
Original Instructions
Install version 372 of MzScheme. (Don't use the latest version. Versions after 372 made lists immutable.)
Get http://ycombinator.com/arc/arc3.tar and untar it.
Type mzscheme -m -f as.scm and you should get an Arc prompt.
If you ^C an Arc program, you'll get the Scheme REPL. Use (tl) to get back to the Arc REPL.
If you have questions or suggestions, post them on the forum.
Read the full README on GitHubWhat Hacker News says
7 sourcesI think it's a ratio of votes to time. I think as little as 4 votes can get something on the homepage if they come in fairly quickly.
The source code for hn is available if you want to go and look up the specifics. I'm not sure if this is the most up-to-date mirror, but the site doesn't change that often: https://github.com/wting/hackernews
In Ask HN: How is it possible to shop on Walmart.com? Everything is out of stock> Coincidentally, the forum we're commenting on right now uses a fork of the original Reddit codebase
The current codebase was developed from scratch - zero forking - from what I can see.
HN is written in ARC http://www.paulgraham.com/arc.html which is a language designed by Paul Graham.
Here’s a thread talking about the early days of HN https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27452276 and it mentions “The earliest version of HN I can find; 166 LOC” https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=723767
Here’s Paul talking about the release of HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html
AFAIK this is the latest public copy of the HN code, but it is significantly outdated: https://github.com/wting/hackernews/blob/master/news.arc
In Sync will shut down on June 30Might not count as modern, but the original Reddit and HackerNews codebases:
- https://github.com/reddit-archive/reddit1.0
- https://github.com/wting/hackernews
In Why Lisp Syntax Workshttps://github.com/wting/hackernews/blob/master/news.arc
Out of date, but you can read the ARC code as HN was 11 years ago.
In Why Lisp?There's also this https://github.com/wting/hackernews -- which is a version of the source code to the site from sometime in the past.
In Ask HN: Is there an open-source HN forum clone?