Search Hacker News comments by text content. Can filter by author or parent story.
AI agents call search_comments to retrieve information from HackerNews MCP Server without modifying anything — typically the context-gathering step in research, monitoring, and reporting workflows, before the agent takes action elsewhere.
This tool retrieves and queries existing comment data from Hacker News with no side effects, modifications, code execution, or destructive operations. It fits the Read category definition: 'retrieves or queries data; no side effects.' The low severity reflects minimal blast radius—an AI agent querying comments poses no risk of data loss, financial impact, or system compromise.
From the tool's definition Tool description states 'Search Hacker News comments by text content' with filtering capabilities. The verb 'Search' and the read-only nature of querying comments without modification or execution confirm this is a retrieval operation.
Attacks that exploit this kind of access
Search Hacker News comments by text content. Can filter by author or parent story. It is categorised as a Read tool in the HackerNews MCP Server MCP Server, which means it retrieves data without modifying state.
Register the HackerNews MCP Server MCP server in PolicyLayer and add a rule for search_comments: allow, deny, rate-limit, or require approval. Point your MCP client at the PolicyLayer proxy URL and the rule is enforced on every call, before it reaches HackerNews MCP Server. Nothing to install.
search_comments is a Read tool with low risk. Read-only tools are generally safe to allow by default.
Yes. Add a rate_limit block to the search_comments rule in your PolicyLayer policy. For example, setting max: 10 and window: 60 limits the tool to 10 calls per minute. Rate limits are tracked per agent session and reset automatically.
Set action: deny in the PolicyLayer policy for search_comments. The AI agent will receive a policy violation error and cannot call the tool. You can also include a reason field to explain why the tool is blocked.
search_comments is provided by the HackerNews MCP Server MCP server (sam3690/hackernews_mcp). PolicyLayer sits as a proxy in front of this server to enforce policies before tool calls reach the server.
Every MCP server has a record like this.
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