How to Write a Show HN Post: Title, First Comment and Timing

Show HN is the part of Hacker News where people share things they have made. A post that reaches the front page can bring a wave of technical visitors, sharp feedback and, often, other sites linking to you. A post that misses sinks in minutes. Unlike Product Hunt, there is no scheduling, no gallery and no launch team: there is a title, a link, your first comment, and how you behave in the thread. This guide covers each one.

What counts as a Show HN

Hacker News has its own rules for Show HN, and moderators apply them. In short, a Show HN is something you made that people can try. That rules some things out:

• Fine: a working product, an open source project, a library, a CLI tool, a game, a hardware project with a demo video, a side project.
• Not a Show HN: a landing page with a waitlist, a newsletter, a blog post, a list of links, a fundraiser. Post those another way, or not at all.

The single biggest factor after the title is whether people can try it right away. A demo that works without signing up, a repository with a one-line install, or a playground in the browser. If sign-up is unavoidable, offer a demo account or a video showing what is behind it. HN readers who hit a wall in the first ten seconds go back and say so in the comments.

The title

Hacker News titles are limited to 80 characters, and a Show HN title must start with "Show HN: ", which uses 9 of them. That leaves 71 characters to say what it is. The Show HN title scorer checks your title against the rules below and gives a score out of 100.

The pattern

Show HN: Name, what it does (or "Name: what it does", or "Name, a [thing] for [people]"). The name alone tells readers nothing; what it does is what earns the click. Examples of the pattern, for made-up products:

• "Show HN: Tailwatch, uptime monitoring that runs on a single binary"
• "Show HN: Lexi, a Postgres extension for full text search"
• "Show HN: Quill, an open source Markdown editor that works offline"
• "Show HN: A CLI that turns any OpenAPI spec into a typed SDK"

What HN readers respond to

• Specifics. The stack, the size, the constraint: "in 300 lines of C", "written in Rust", "self-hosted", "runs in the browser".
• Open source, when it is. Say so in the title.
• Plain language. HN's guidelines ask for titles without hype. The scorer deducts for words like revolutionary, ultimate, game-changing and world's first.
• A neutral tone. No exclamation marks, no emoji, no words in capitals for emphasis.
• The thing first. "Show HN: Quill, an offline Markdown editor" reads better than "Show HN: We are excited to share Quill".

Length

Aim for 25 to 70 characters in total. Shorter titles rarely say enough; titles near the limit are harder to scan. Count with the scorer, which counts the "Show HN: " prefix too.

Before and after

• Before: "Show HN: Acme!!! The ultimate AI-powered revolutionary dev tool 🚀" (hype, emoji, says nothing)
• After: "Show HN: Acme, an AI code reviewer that runs locally on your GPU" (64 characters: what it is, how, and why HN might care)

The link

Link to the thing itself: the demo, the repository or the product page that lets people try it. If your project is open source, linking to the repository is common and well received. Make sure the page loads fast, works on mobile, and explains itself in the first screen for someone who has never heard of it. On the Show HN posts we checked, the link to the product was dofollow, which makes a front-page Show HN a strong first link for a new domain.

The first comment

Post a comment on your own submission straight after posting. HN readers expect it, and it is where most of them decide whether to engage. A good first comment:

1. Says hello and who you are in one line ("Hi HN, I'm the developer of Acme").
2. Explains why you built it: the problem you had, what you tried first.
3. Explains how it works. This is the part HN cares about most. The stack, the architecture, the tricky part you solved, the trade-offs you made.
4. Is honest about limits: what it does not do yet, what is rough.
5. Asks for something specific: feedback on the API design, the pricing, the install process.

Keep marketing language out of it. The maker comment generator gives a starting draft, and the launch post generator drafts a Show HN title and first comment together; rewrite both in your own voice.

An example first comment

For the made-up Quill editor above, a first comment could read:

Hi HN, I'm the developer of Quill. I write on trains a lot and every Markdown editor I tried either needed a connection to sync or stored notes in a format I could not read without the app. Quill keeps plain .md files on disk and syncs them through any folder you already use.

It is built with Tauri and a Rust core, so the download is small and it starts quickly. The hard part was conflict handling when the same file changes on two devices offline: Quill keeps both versions and shows a merge view rather than silently picking one.

What it does not do yet: no mobile app, and plugins are not supported. I'd love feedback on the merge view in particular, and on whether plain files on disk are a feature or a limitation for you.

Notice what is missing: no superlatives, no "we're excited", no call to sign up. It explains, admits limits and asks a real question, which is what starts a useful thread.

When to post

There is no launch schedule on Hacker News: your post starts competing the moment you submit it, and what matters is that people see it in its first hour. Many founders post on a weekday morning, US Eastern time, when both American and European readers are online; weekends have fewer readers and fewer competing posts. 8 AM in New York is 1 PM in London and 5:30 PM in Bangalore in summer. The launch time planner converts any time, and our guide to the best time to launch compares platforms.

More important than the hour: post when you can stay in the thread for the next several hours.

Running the thread

• Reply to everything substantive, quickly and specifically. Technical questions deserve technical answers.
• Take criticism well. HN comments can be blunt. Thank people, agree where they are right, explain your reasoning where you disagree, and never argue. Readers judge the maker by the replies.
• Do not ask anyone to upvote or comment. HN detects voting rings and penalizes posts that get votes from people sent to them. Sharing your post is fine; asking for votes is not.
• Fix things live if you can, and say so in the thread. "Good catch, fixed" is one of the best replies you can write.
• Keep notes. The thread is free user research.

If it does not take off

Most Show HN posts do not reach the front page, including good ones; timing and luck play a part. If yours sank quickly, do not delete it and repost it the same day. Improve the title and the demo, keep building, and come back when the project has changed meaningfully. Read HN's own guidance on reposting before you try again. In the meantime, other platforms reach other audiences: the developer tool launch sites, the open source project directories and weekly launches like Aback Launch, where products go live every Friday at 00:00 UTC.

After a good Show HN

• Read every comment again the next day and turn the common points into issues.
• Thank the people who helped: reply to the best feedback with what you changed.
• Watch for links. Front-page posts often get picked up by newsletters and blogs. Check which links point to you with the nofollow checker.
• Keep new users. Our guide to onboarding, feedback and metrics after launch covers the next two weeks.

Checklist

• It is something people can try, not a waitlist or an article.
• The title starts with "Show HN: ", says what it does, and is under 80 characters.
• No hype words, exclamation marks, emoji or capitals for emphasis.
• The link goes to the demo, the repository or a page that explains itself.
• The first comment explains why and how, honestly.
• You can stay in the thread for several hours.
• Nobody has been asked to upvote.

FAQ

How long can a Show HN title be?

80 characters, including the "Show HN: " prefix, which leaves 71 for the rest. Titles between 25 and 70 characters in total are easiest to scan.

What should a Show HN title include?

The name and what the product does, in plain language, plus anything HN readers care about such as open source, the language it is written in, or that it is self-hosted. Leave out hype words, exclamation marks and emoji.

Can I post a landing page as a Show HN?

No. Show HN is for things people can try. Landing pages with a waitlist, newsletters and blog posts do not qualify.

What should I write in the first comment of a Show HN?

Who you are, why you built it, how it works technically, what it does not do yet, and one specific question for readers. Keep marketing language out of it.

Is a Hacker News link dofollow?

On the Show HN posts we checked, the link to the product was dofollow. It is one of the few large communities where that is the case.