Lobsters

How to Use This API

1. Hottest Stories

https://lobste.rs/hottest.json

2. Newest Stories

https://lobste.rs/newest.json

3. Stories by Tag

https://lobste.rs/t/python.json

https://lobste.rs/t/rust.json

https://lobste.rs/t/javascript.json

4. Individual Story with Comments

https://lobste.rs/s/abcd1234/comments.json

Replace abcd1234 with the story's short ID (found in the short_id field from the list endpoints). Returns the story plus all comments.

5. Stories by User

https://lobste.rs/~username/stories.json

Shows stories submitted by a specific user. Replace username with the Lobsters username.

6. Response Format

[
  {
    "short_id": "abcd12",
    "title": "Rust is now the standard for systems programming",
    "url": "https://example.com/article",
    "score": 87,
    "comments_url": "https://lobste.rs/s/abcd12/comments",
    "comment_count": 23,
    "tags": ["rust", "programming"],
    "created_at": "2026-06-15T10:30:00Z",
    "submitter_user": {
      "username": "techfan42"
    }
  }
]

7. JavaScript — Fetch and Display Stories

fetch('https://lobste.rs/hottest.json')
  .then(r => r.json())
  .then(stories => {
    stories.slice(0, 10).forEach(s => {
      const tags = s.tags.join(', ');
      console.log(`[${tags}] ${s.title} (${s.score} pts, ${s.comment_count} comments)`);
    });
  });

8. Python — Get Tag Feed and Filter

import requests

resp = requests.get('https://lobste.rs/t/javascript.json')
stories = resp.json()

# Show only highly-rated JS stories
for s in stories:
    if s['score'] >= 10:
        print(f"{s['title']} by {s['submitter_user']['username']} — {s['score']} pts")

9. Python — Get Story Comments

import requests

# Get the hottest story's short_id
hot = requests.get('https://lobste.rs/hottest.json').json()
short_id = hot[0]['short_id']

# Fetch comments
resp = requests.get(f'https://lobste.rs/s/{short_id}/comments.json')
comments = resp.json()[0]['comments']
print(f"Top story: {hot[0]['title']}")
print(f"Comments: {len(comments)}")
for c in comments[:3]:
    print(f"  {c['comment']}")