A Hacker News podcast made from the front page and its comments
Lissin reads Hacker News's front page, the linked articles and a sample of comments, and turns them into a spoken digest on the subjects you pick.
The short answer
Ask Lissin for a recurring show that names Hacker News: "each weekday at 8, the front-page stories about databases and AI tooling, with what the comments disagree about". Before each episode it reads recent front-page stories that drew discussion, the articles they link to and a sample of comments, then writes a spoken digest that lists its sources.
How to set it up
Name Hacker News in the request
"Tech news" sends Lissin to search the web. "Hacker News" or "HN" sends it to Hacker News itself: it takes recent front-page stories that drew discussion, opens up to ten of them, reads the article each one links to and pulls a sample of the comments.
Say which stories you care about
The front page mixes programming, startups, science and a stray essay about woodworking. Give it a filter: "only databases, Postgres and anything on running LLMs locally; skip crypto and funding rounds". The monthly "Who is hiring?" threads are left out unless the show is about jobs, in which case they are read in depth.
Ask for the argument, not only the headline
Often the comments are the reason to read a Hacker News story. Ask for them: "for each story, the strongest objection in the comments and whether anyone with first-hand experience weighed in".
Use a thread link for one discussion
Paste a link to a single thread, the kind ending in item?id=, to get an episode on just that discussion. Ask HN and text posts are read with more of their comments, because there the discussion is the story.
At a glance
- What it reads
- Recent front-page stories that drew discussion, up to 10 per episode
- Per story
- The linked article, or the post's own text for Ask HN, plus a sample of comments
- Left out by default
- The monthly "Who is hiring?" and similar threads
- One thread
- Paste its news.ycombinator.com/item link
- Delivery
- Once, daily, weekdays, weekly or every two weeks, at a time you choose
Hear what comes out
Shows already published on Lissin, free to play in the browser.
Questions
- Is this an official Hacker News podcast?
- No. Lissin is not connected to Hacker News or Y Combinator. It reads the public front page and the pages it links to, the same way you would in a browser.
- What happens when a linked article is paywalled?
- Lissin cannot open it. The story can still be covered from its title and the discussion, but the episode will not know what the article itself says, so treat that part as the commenters' view.
- Can I listen in my podcast app?
- A show you make plays in the Lissin app or from a shared web link. It has no RSS feed for Overcast, Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
- How is this different from the AI news briefing?
- That page is about briefings researched from the open web. This one reads one community's front page and its comments, so you hear what Hacker News readers chose and argued about, not what news sites published.
What this does not do
It covers what reached the front page before the episode was made, and only a sample of each thread's comments, so a long discussion is summarised rather than covered in full. Paywalled or login-only articles cannot be opened. Commenters are often wrong with confidence, and the episode can repeat that, so check claims against the linked source. Creating a show needs an iPhone on iOS 26 or later.
Sources
Make your own show, or hear a sample
Make a show from your topic or documents in the Lissin iPhone app (iOS 26 or later). Or listen to public shows in the web player without installing the app.
Last reviewed October 27, 2026 by Lissin Editorial.