HN Reader for Obsidian

Browse Hacker News top stories directly inside Obsidian. Save interesting links to your reading list with one click.

Website: https://hn.jsdev.space/plugins/obsidian/

Features

• Browse Top, New, Best, Ask HN, Show HN, Jobs feeds
• Open as a sidebar panel or a new tab
• Save stories to a reading list note with one click
• Optional site favicons next to story titles
• Daily notes mode — creates a new file per day with YAML frontmatter
• Tags — automatically append tags to every saved story
• Configurable number of stories (10 / 20 / 30 / 50)
• Respects Obsidian's light and dark themes

Installation

Community plugin

HN Reader is available in the Obsidian community plugin directory:

https://community.obsidian.md/plugins/hn-reader

1. Open Settings → Community plugins in Obsidian.
2. Disable Restricted mode if needed.
3. Click Browse, search for HN Reader, then install and enable it.

Manual installation

You can also install a release manually.

1. Download the latest release from the Releases page:

   • main.js
   • manifest.json
   • styles.css

2. In your vault, create the folder:

   <your-vault>/.obsidian/plugins/hn-reader/
   

3. Copy the three downloaded files into that folder.

4. In Obsidian go to Settings → Community plugins, disable Restricted mode, then find HN Reader in the list and enable it.

BRAT

BRAT is a plugin that lets you install and auto-update plugins that are not yet in the official list.

1. Install BRAT from the Obsidian community plugin list.
2. Open Settings → BRAT → Add Beta Plugin.
3. Paste this URL:

   https://github.com/anliberant/hn-obsidian-plugin
   

4. Click Add Plugin — BRAT will install it automatically.

Settings

Setting	Description
Display mode	Open in sidebar panel or new tab
Default feed	Feed shown when plugin opens (Top / New / Best / Ask / Show / Jobs)
Stories per page	How many stories to load: 10, 20, 30, or 50
Show site favicons	Toggle small favicons next to story titles
Save mode	Single file or a new daily note per day
File path	Path to the reading list note (single file mode)
Daily notes folder	Folder for daily HN notes, named YYYY-MM-DD-hn.md
Add tags	Toggle to append tags to every saved story
Tags	Space-separated tags, e.g. #hn #reading

Usage

• Click the HN icon in the left ribbon to open the reader
• Use Ctrl+P → Open HN Reader to open via command palette
• Switch feeds with the Top / New / Best / Ask / Show / Jobs buttons
• Click 🔖 next to any story to save it to your reading list
• Click ↻ to refresh stories

Release notes

1.0.1

• Added the Jobs feed.
• Added optional site favicons next to story titles.

Reading List format

Single file mode:

# HN Reading List

- [ ] [Story title](https://example.com) | 312 pts | [HN](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=...) | 2026-05-28

Daily note mode (HN/2026-05-28-hn.md):

---
date: 2026-05-28
tags: [hn, reading]
---

# HN Reading List 2026-05-28

- [ ] [Story title](https://example.com) | 312 pts | [HN](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=...) | 2026-05-28 #hn #reading

License

MIT