The catalog is large — 6,454 videos, 150 topics, 19 years of Hacker News threads. The hard part is not finding a video; it is deciding which one is worth the next 40 minutes. Three approaches work well.
1. Start from the canon
Sort by most recommended. These are the videos HN commenters keep returning to across different threads and different years: the linear algebra series, the chip fabrication talk, the classic talks on software design.
A video that keeps coming back for a decade is usually a safe bet. A video with one strong year and no follow-up is usually a moment, not a reference.
2. Start from a subject
If you already know what you want to learn, go to categories and pick an area — software, hardware, mathematics, systems, biology, history. Each area page lists its topics, so you can narrow from 1,600 videos down to 40 without a search query.
3. Start from a question
Search is literal: it matches titles, channels, topics and tags. Searching compilers, chip fab, linear algebra or urbanism returns the videos HN associated with that phrase, not a fuzzy recommendation graph.
Reading the numbers
Every video page shows how many times it was linked in HN comments, how many distinct commenters did so, and the first and last year it appeared. A wide year range with many recommenders is the strongest signal in the catalog.
Occasional mentions are not endorsements — sometimes HN links a video to argue with it.
What this index is not
It is not a recommendation engine and it does not track what you watch. If a video is missing from the catalog, it is because the upstream HackerTube catalog does not include it yet.