Ycombinator News Automated Collection and Email Distribution

Workflow Name

Ycombinator News Automated Collection and Email Distribution

Key Features and Highlights

This workflow automatically scrapes the homepage content of the renowned tech startup news site Ycombinator News (Hacker News), extracts news headlines along with their corresponding links, organizes them into a spreadsheet file, and sends the latest news summary as an email attachment to designated recipients—achieving a fully automated process from news collection to distribution.

Core Problems Addressed

• Eliminates the tedious manual process of visiting the news site and copying headlines and links
• Structures and archives news content for easy future reference and analysis
• Ensures timely receipt of the latest information through automated email delivery, improving information acquisition efficiency

Use Cases

• Entrepreneurs, investors, and industry analysts automatically receive the latest updates in the tech startup ecosystem
• Media and content teams quickly organize industry news to support content planning and editorial work
• Any individual or team needing regular tracking of Ycombinator news can enhance their information processing automation

Main Workflow Steps

1. Manual Trigger Execution: The workflow is initiated by the user clicking the execute button
2. HTTP Request to Fetch Page: Access https://news.ycombinator.com/ to retrieve the homepage HTML
3. HTML Data Extraction: Extract all news headlines and their corresponding URLs from the page source
4. Split List Items: Separate the news headlines and links into individual lists
5. Merge Lists: Combine headlines and their matching links by index to form complete news entries
6. Generate Spreadsheet File: Export the organized news list into a date-stamped spreadsheet file (Excel or other formats)
7. Send Email Notification: Attach the generated news file and send it via email to specified recipients

Involved Systems or Services

• HTTP Request Service (for web content retrieval)
• HTML Content Extraction Node (to parse and extract data from webpage structure)
• File Generation (spreadsheet export)
• Email Sending Service (SMTP email delivery)

Target Users and Value Proposition

• Tech entrepreneurs, investment firms, and industry watchers: Quickly grasp the latest industry trends
• Content operations and news editorial teams: Efficiently organize news materials and reduce labor costs
• Automation enthusiasts and n8n users: Enhance automation in data collection and distribution, achieving closed-loop information flow management

This workflow is user-friendly and leverages n8n’s powerful node combinations to deliver an end-to-end intelligent automation solution—from web scraping to email notification—significantly boosting information processing efficiency.