Octopart initially provided the official API[1] and then Algolia took over early this year[2].

[1] https://www.hnsearch.com/api [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7130590

A lot of people seem to have used the API to build cool apps.

https://hn.algolia.io/cool_apps

I would read the docs first and jump to conclusions later.