updates.json: Get changed items and profiles

API: firebaseio.com:hackernews
Endpoint: /updates.json
Response format: application/json
Auth: unknown
Method: GET
Last Status: 200
Latency: 365ms

Description

Returns an object with 'items' (recently updated story/comment IDs) and 'profiles' (recently updated user IDs). Use this for incremental sync instead of refetching everything.

From spec: Returns item IDs and profile names that have recently changed. Updated roughly every 60 seconds.

Usage Tips

- Poll this endpoint periodically to track changes - Returns ~100 items and ~30 profiles - Useful for keeping cached data up to date - Check every 60 seconds for real-time sync

Examples (1)

Get recently updated items and profiles probe-gate

Demonstrates fetching lists of items and user profiles that have changed recently, useful for incremental data synchronization.

curl 'https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/updates.json'
import requests

resp = requests.get("https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/updates.json")
data = resp.json()
import zingu_apis

api = zingu_apis.api("firebaseio")
result = api.fetch("updates.json")

for item in result:
    print(item)
const resp = await fetch("https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/updates.json");
const data = await resp.json();

Probe History

Latency

Status Codes

TimeStatusLatencySize
2026-04-16 00:14:22.049501 200 365ms
2026-04-15 00:23:58.433470 200 388ms
2026-04-14 03:07:53.405199 200 485ms
2026-04-12 13:54:50.282005 200 348ms
2026-04-10 06:51:44.183794 200 300ms
2026-04-09 02:40:39.460556 200 420ms