GitHub - algolia/hn-search: Hacker News Search
Hacker News
February 22, 2026
AI-Generated Deep Dive Summary
Hacker News Search, powered by Algolia, is a Rails 5 application designed to enhance the search functionality of Hacker News. This open-source project leverages React for its frontend, Algoliasearch-rails for indexing and search, and wkhtmltoimage for generating thumbnails from URLs. The tool provides developers with an easy way to contribute to its development through GitHub, offering detailed setup instructions for cloning the repository, installing dependencies, and configuring credentials. Its modular code structure, particularly in the app/assets directory, makes it accessible for UI contributions.
The project's deployment process uses Capistrano, though it currently has some known issues. For instance, bluepill occasionally causes deployment problems, requiring manual intervention to restart services. Additionally, orphaned thin server processes can lead to errors, necessitating SSH access to kill them manually. Despite these challenges, the indexing configuration is robust, utilizing Algolia's advanced search features to deliver precise results. The system employs a multi-criteria ranking approach, combining typo matching, proximity, attribute relevance, and custom sorting based on HN points and comment counts.
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Originally published on Hacker News on 2/22/2026