Find Hacker News discussions behind a Slack feature question
Ask in Slack and get a focused Hacker News search to help inform the next product decision.
Trigger
Channel Message Received
Triggered when a message is posted in a Slack channel (public, private, or multi-party IM). Does NOT match direct messages.
Action
Search Hackernews Posts
Get relevant posts from hacker news based on a full-text query and optional filters. results can be limited using the size parameter.
Why this helps
A useful research question gets buried in Slack while the founder has to remember to investigate it elsewhere.
- Find relevant Hacker News posts from the question's key terms.
- Reduce the time spent switching between team chat and research.
- Keep the original discussion connected to the findings.
Setup
Build it in a few focused steps.
- 1Connect Slack and Hackernews to Notis once through the portal.
- 2Create an automation in the portal or ask Notis conversationally to make one.
- 3Use a plain-language instruction to search Hacker News when a Slack message asks a product or technical question and summarize relevant results in the run report.
- 4Select Channel Message Received as the trigger and choose where Notis should report runs.
- 5Test with one real Slack question and check that the search matches its intent.
Questions about this workflow
Does this search every Slack message?
The trigger runs on channel messages. Tell Notis in the instruction to act only on messages that contain a clear product or technical question.
What will the run report include?
Ask for a short summary of relevant Hacker News results and links, so the research can be reviewed alongside the Slack question.
When this happens · Trigger
Do this · Action
Supported Triggers and Actions
Notis builds workflows that link Slack to Hackernews. A trigger fires from one place; an action lands in another.
Slack triggers
Hackernews actions
Recurring trigger
Notis starts this workflow on a schedule, such as daily, weekly, or during business hours.
Get Hackernews Frontpage
Get the frontpage posts of hacker news.
Webhook trigger
Notis starts this workflow when an external tool or custom backend sends an HTTP request.
Get Hackernews Item
Get a specific item from hacker news using its id. limits response size to prevent context overflow.
New Channel Created Trigger
Triggered when a new channel is created in Slack.
Get Latest Hackernews Posts
Get the latest posts from hacker news based on optional filters. results can be limited using the size parameter.
Channel Message Received
Triggered when a message is posted in a Slack channel (public, private, or multi-party IM). Does NOT match direct messages.
Get Hackernews Today Posts
Get today's posts from hacker news.
Direct Message Received
Triggered when a new direct message (DM) is sent to a user in Slack. Catches all DMs across all DM channels.
Get Hackernews User
Get a specific user from hacker news using their username.
Message Reaction Added
Triggered when a reaction is added to a message in Slack. Supports optional filtering by channel and emoji name.
Search Hackernews Posts
Get relevant posts from hacker news based on a full-text query and optional filters. results can be limited using the size parameter.
Message Reaction Removed
Triggered when a reaction is removed from a message in Slack. Supports optional filtering by channel and emoji name.
Reaction Added Trigger
DEPRECATED: use `SLACK_MESSAGE_REACTION_ADDED` instead. Triggered when a reaction is added to a message in Slack.
Connect any two apps with Notis in the middle.
Slack and Hackernews, or any other combination from 1,000+ integrations.
When this happens · Trigger
Do this · Action
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