HN Station

A local-first Hacker News desktop client. Read articles and comments side by side, get AI-powered summaries, and keep a searchable archive — all on your machine.

🔗 Try it live → hnstation.dev

Why HN Station?

• Split-pane reading — Article and discussion side by side, like a proper workspace
• Local AI assistant — Summarize articles, analyze discussions, and chat about stories using Ollama, Gemini, or OpenAI
• Full-text search — FTS5-powered instant search across titles, summaries, and topics with synonym-aware tag filtering
• Privacy-first — Built-in ad blocker and cookie stripper. All data stays in your local SQLite database
• Keyboard-driven — Navigate with j/k, open stories with Enter, cycle layouts with Ctrl+Space, and close tabs with Ctrl+W
• Your personal archive — Stories and comments persist locally forever. No account required

Web vs Desktop: Try the web preview at hnstation.dev for a quick look. For the full experience — split-pane article loading, local AI, and persistent storage — use the desktop app.

Note for Web Mode: We have streamlined the web workspace into a premium, compact 2-Pane Discussion Reader! Articles open directly in new browser tabs via double-click, while the rest of the workspace displays discussion comments, search query filters, and dynamic topic tags. Web preview runs entirely client-side with Zero-Login, isolating all bookmarks and hidden/read states to the browser's local storage.

Download

Features

Reader

• Chrome-style browser toolbar with Back/Forward/Refresh/Home
• Triple-state dark mode: Original, Follow System, or Forced Safe Dark
• Tabbed workspace with Chrome-style flexible tabs
• Resizable AI sidebar with Discussion, Summary, and Chat tabs

AI Integration

• Article summaries — Bullet-point takeaways from full article text
• Discussion analysis — Synthesized community opinion from top comments
• Multi-turn chat — Ask questions about any story with full context
• Token-by-token streaming via SSE with base64 encoding for lossless Markdown
• Supports Ollama (local), Gemini, and OpenAI

Search & Filtering

• Hybrid FTS5 full-text search across the entire archive
• Canonical tag mapping with user-editable tag_mappings.json
• ANY/ALL/Exclusive match modes for multi-topic filtering
• Search-to-filter workflow: type and press Enter to create persistent topic chips

Hacker News Integration

• Zero-Login Proxy Architecture — Configure Hacker News credentials in Settings. Credentials are saved locally in the browser's localStorage and sent over HTTPS via a secure Go proxy.
• Feed Voting — Upvote and downvote stories directly from the story card in the feed with live score updating.
• Discussion Voting & Nested Replies — Upvote/downvote comments and write nested replies directly in the discussion view.
• Top-level posting — Submit top-level comments to Hacker News threads directly from the AI sidebar.
• Desktop Notifications for Favorite Topics — Enable desktop notifications in UI Settings to receive native alerts when new stories matching your active/favorite topics are fetched. Clicking the notification focuses the app and opens the story automatically.

Privacy Engine

• Request-level ad and tracker blocking
• Cookie stripping ("Ghost Mode")
• No telemetry, no analytics, no external calls (except HN API and your chosen AI provider)

Keyboard Shortcuts

Architecture

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  Electron (Desktop)                         │
│  ┌───────────┐  ┌────────────────────────┐  │
│  │ React SPA │◄─│ Go Backend (SQLite)    │  │
│  │ (Vite)    │  │ localhost:58090         │  │
│  └───────────┘  │ • HN API ingestion     │  │
│                 │ • Ollama AI integration │  │
│                 │ • FTS5 search engine    │  │
│                 └────────────────────────┘  │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────┘

• Frontend: React 18 + TypeScript + Tailwind, bundled with Vite
• Backend: Go with Chi router, serving both API and embedded SPA
• Storage: SQLite (desktop) / PostgreSQL (web deployment)
• AI: Ollama for local inference, Gemini/OpenAI for cloud
• Desktop: Electron with bundled Go binary as background process

Data is stored at %APPDATA%/HN Station/ (Windows) or ~/Library/Application Support/HN Station/ (macOS).

See docs/architecture.md for the full technical deep-dive.

Development

Prerequisites

• Go 1.22+
• Node.js 20+
• Ollama (optional, for local AI features)

Quick Start

Windows (PowerShell):

# Build backend + frontend
.\scripts\build.ps1

# Run both components
.\scripts\run.ps1

macOS:

chmod +x scripts/start-desktop.sh
make dev

Linux:

make all
make dev-backend   # Terminal 1
make dev-frontend  # Terminal 2

Build Desktop Installer

# Windows
npm run build:win --prefix web

# macOS
./scripts/release_mac.sh

# Linux (AppImage)
npm run build:linux --prefix web

Contributing

Contributions welcome! Please open an issue first to discuss what you'd like to change.

License

MIT © 2026 Rajesh Kumar