HarmoNova for Hacker News — Chrome Browser Extension
A better place to read Hacker News on your browser.
HarmoNova for Hacker News is a Chrome extension that gives Hacker News a cleaner, more enjoyable desktop interface. Read stories, follow discussions, search Hacker News, and use your HN account without leaving the website. Also works with Edge or any other Chromium based browser that supports loading Chrome extensions.
Inspired by Harmonic for Hacker News by Simon Halvdansson. This is an independent project, not affiliated with or endorsed by the original developer.
Features
- Side-by-side story cards and threaded discussions.
- Top, New, Best, Ask HN, Show HN, Jobs, and site-wide search.
- Customizable themes, typography, and story/comment layouts.
- Vote, reply, submit, and save favorites with your Hacker News account.
- Optional full-article and discussion AI summaries using your own OpenRouter API key.
Install in Chrome
No coding or building required. Just download the extension, extract it, and tell Chrome where the folder is.
- Download: Go to Releases and download the ZIP named
harmonova-<version>.zipunder Assets. - Unzip it: Extract the downloaded ZIP. Open the extracted folder; inside you'll find a folder named
harmonova. Keep it somewhere permanent, like Documents. - Open Chrome extensions: Type
chrome://extensionsinto Chrome's address bar. - Turn on Developer mode using the switch in the top-right corner, then click Load unpacked.
- Choose the folder: Select the inner
harmonovafolder — the one that directly contains the filemanifest.json. Don't select the ZIP itself. - You're done: Open news.ycombinator.com, or refresh it if it was already open.
Prefer downloading the source or using Git?
That works too. On the repository page, choose Code → Download ZIP and extract it, or clone it:
git clone https://github.com/chaosmanage/harmonova.git
Then follow steps 3–6 above, selecting the downloaded or cloned repository folder (the folder with manifest.json). You still don't need to build anything.
To update an unpacked installation, keep the same folder location, replace its contents (or run git pull), click Reload on chrome://extensions, and refresh Hacker News. Having trouble?
HarmoNova quietly checks the official GitHub releases feed approximately once a day. If a newer version is published, a small notice appears inside Hacker News with a link to the release; it does not download or install anything automatically. Ignore that version to stop seeing it, or turn off Settings → Appearance → Notify about new releases (also available directly from the notice). No Chrome desktop notifications are used.
Why I made this
I really enjoy using Harmonic for Hacker News on Android. Compared with Harmonic, the regular Hacker News website never felt particularly appealing or intuitive to me. I wanted to bring that same reading experience to my computer.
I even tried running the Android app in an emulator. It worked as an experiment, but it wasn't how I wanted to use Hacker News every day. A Chrome extension turned out to be the better solution: open Hacker News in a normal browser tab, and get the Harmonic-inspired interface right there.
A huge thank-you to Simon Halvdansson for the original Harmonic Android app. Its design, thoughtful approach to reading, and open-source code are the reason this project exists. I've taken a lot of inspiration from it, including the story cards, colors, typography, and comment layout. This is an independent browser adaptation, not an official Harmonic desktop app.
If you've never used Harmonic on Android, that's fine. All you need to know is that this extension makes Hacker News more comfortable to read on a desktop.
What can it do?
- Read side by side. Stories stay on the left while the discussion opens on the right.
- Browse more feeds. Top, New, Best, Ask HN, Show HN, Jobs, and more.
- Follow conversations. Color-coded reply depths, collapsible threads, comment search, and sorting.
- Search all of Hacker News. Find stories or comments and filter by date, author, and more.
- Make it yours. Dark themes, fonts, story previews, comment styles, and other settings.
- Use your HN account. Vote, reply, submit stories, and manage favorites, using Hacker News's own login.
- Summarize with AI (optional). Use your own OpenRouter key to summarize a public article or its HN discussion.
A closer look
| Feeds | Search Hacker News |
|---|---|
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| Appearance | Story settings |
|---|---|
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Explore the full feature guide, including more screenshots →
Optional previews and AI
External previews start enabled for public websites. Toggle them in the sidebar under Settings → AI, alongside summary consent, the model, prompt, streaming preferences and OpenRouter key. Websites that refuse metadata or image access fall back to placeholders. Article summaries read capped public article HTML/text when available and send that text to OpenRouter only after you explicitly enable AI permissions. Browser host permissions cover HTTP(S) websites for these features; see Privacy for safeguards and limitations.
The Article summary button reads bounded public article text when the site permits it; Discussion summarizes public HN comments. Save an OpenRouter key and fresh AI permission in Settings → AI. Saving a key alone enables nothing. Automatic summaries need separate consent and a real story selection. The selected public text is sent to OpenRouter and may incur charges.
In private windows, reader data and drafts stay only in the current document and disappear on reload, navigation or closure. Private AI and external previews are disabled. See Privacy for exact storage and request behavior.
Illustrative mocked summary; actual results depend on the linked site's access policy and the selected AI model.
A couple of things to know
You don't need to sign in just to read. For voting, replying, or posting, HarmoNova uses your Hacker News session; login happens on HN itself. Editing or deleting existing comments currently opens HN's original edit/delete page after asking for confirmation.
You can always open original Hacker News from the menu or turn off HarmoNova from the extension icon without uninstalling it. The extension runs on news.ycombinator.com; it has no project-run server or analytics. Read more about privacy and permissions.
More information
Full feature guide · Installation help · Architecture · Contributing and development · Changelog
Credits and license
Credit: HarmoNova was inspired by Harmonic for Hacker News, created by Simon Halvdansson. Thanks to Simon for publishing the original Android project under Apache License 2.0 and for the design inspiration.
HarmoNova uses its supplied icon and banner artwork. The default font is locally bundled Google Sans Flex Rounded (SIL Open Font License 1.1); System UI and Serif remain available. See branding details.
HarmoNova is an independent project and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Harmonic developer, Hacker News, or Y Combinator. This extension is licensed under Apache License 2.0.