[Julie90210]

Yes you should use https://hn.algolia.com !

[qwerty456127]

I do. But how do I filter never-been-among-the-top-30 titles out while keeping the list sorted by date rather than by rating?

[justinhj]

You can only sort by popularity, which maps to 'score' in the data structure that the API sorts. You can see that here: https://github.com/HackerNews/API The highest position on front page is not, AFAICT stored in any way and is not searchable.