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Launching on Hacker News: Show HN, Comments and What Gets You Flagged

How to launch a product on Hacker News within the rules: Show HN, titles, the maker's first comment, handling criticism, reposts, and what gets a post penalized.

Updated
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15 min read
Sources
Checked against HN's guidelines, Show HN rules, FAQ, Launch HN instructions and moderator comments, October 2026

Key takeaways

  • HN optimizes for intellectual curiosity. Write for builders as peers, not for buyers or investors.
  • Show HN is for something people can try right now, ideally without a signup. Landing pages, waitlists and blog posts don't qualify.
  • Never ask for upvotes or comments, and never let friends post booster comments. HN penalizes or bans submissions, accounts and sites that do.
  • The launch is the comment thread. Plan to spend the day there, answering questions and criticism without getting defensive.
  • A Show HN that got little attention can usually be reposted. One that got real attention should only come back after a major change.

This guide covers launching a B2B or developer product on Hacker News (HN): what counts as a Show HN, how to write the title and the maker’s comment, how to behave in the thread, and what gets a post penalized or buried. It’s written for founders and the devrel and marketing people who support them.

Every rule below comes from HN’s own pages or from comments by the site’s moderators. Where something is just common practice and not documented, the guide says so.

1. What HN Rewards

The guidelines describe what’s on-topic in one line: “anything that gratifies one’s intellectual curiosity.” The welcome page says stories “do have to be deeply interesting,” meaning things that teach you something about the world, and that the most important principle is to make comments that are “civil and substantial.”

That has three consequences for a launch:

  • Novelty and substance beat polish. A rough project with an interesting technical idea does better than a slick product with a generic pitch. The Show HN rules say outright that a project “needn’t be complicated or look slick.”
  • Promotion is tolerated, not welcomed. The guidelines say “It’s ok to post your own stuff part of the time, but the primary use of the site should be for curiosity.”
  • Marketing language backfires. HN’s moderator dang, writing about Show HN posts: “Drop any language that sounds like marketing or sales. On HN, that is an instant turnoff.”

If the post wouldn’t interest a room of skeptical engineers with your company name taken off, it isn’t ready.

2. The Official Rules That Matter for a Launch

Read the guidelines, the Show HN rules and the FAQ yourself before you post. They’re short. These are the parts that come up most in launches.

Titles

  • Use the original title unless it’s misleading or linkbait. Don’t editorialize.
  • Don’t make titles stand out with uppercase, exclamation points, or “saying how great an article is.”
  • Cut gratuitous numbers and number-plus-adjective phrases (“10 Ways To Do X” becomes “Ways To Do X”), unless the number means something.
  • Take the site name out of the title. HN displays the domain next to the link.
  • Add [video] or [pdf] if that’s what the link is.
  • Show HN posts start with “Show HN”.

Moderators edit titles that break these rules, and dang has called that “standard practice on HN for over a decade.” A plain title that just describes the thing is the safe choice: “Show HN: [Name] – [what it does, in plain words]”. Leave out superlatives. The Launch HN instructions say “Don’t use superlatives (fastest, biggest, first, best). Modest language is stronger.”

Votes and comments

  • “Don’t solicit upvotes, comments, or submissions.” (guidelines)
  • The FAQ says: “We penalize or ban submissions, accounts, and sites that break this rule.” Asking for comments isn’t allowed either, and the FAQ adds that it works against you: “HN readers are sensitive to this and will detect it, flag it, and use unkind words like ‘spam’.”
  • The Show HN rules: “Please don’t ask friends to upvote or comment. That’s not ok on HN.”
  • HN runs software to catch voting rings. Moderator comments describe a “voting ring penalty” applied to submissions that trip it, and dang’s summary is that getting people to upvote your posts “mostly backfires.”

dang distinguishes naive friends-and-fans boosting, which moderators often go easy on, from knowingly coordinated accounts, which is “an obvious ban.” Either way, don’t send people a link to your thread and ask them to vote or comment.

Accounts

  • Show HN is for something “you’ve worked on personally and which you’re around to discuss.” Post it yourself, from your own account.
  • dang’s tips: “Don’t have your username be that of your company or project.” You don’t need to use your real name, just “something to indicate that you’re here as a human, not a brand.” Email hn@ycombinator.com to change a username.
  • The guidelines allow throwaway accounts for sensitive information but say “please don’t create accounts routinely.”
  • HN is currently restricting Show HNs from users new to the site (the page calls it temporary). The showlim page says this is because of “a massive influx, mostly by users who aren’t yet familiar with the site or its culture,” and asks people to “get to know the community, become a good contributor” first. The page doesn’t give exact thresholds. If your account is new, start taking part in threads well before launch day.

Writing

  • “Don’t post generated text or AI-edited text.” (guidelines) In 2026 dang added this to his Show HN tips: “Write your text by hand. Don’t use an LLM to generate any of it (not even a tiny bit, including to edit or spruce it up).” The guidelines also say “please don’t automate posting.”
  • Don’t delete and repost. “Deletion is for things that shouldn’t have been submitted in the first place.”

How ranking and flags work (only what’s documented)

The FAQ says the basic algorithm “divides points by a power of the time since a story was submitted,” and that other factors include “user flags, anti-abuse software, software which demotes overheated discussions, account or site weighting, and moderator action.” It also says “You can’t derive rank from votes and time alone,” and that posts from high-karma users don’t rank higher.

A [flagged] post was flagged by users as breaking the guidelines or not belonging on HN; moderators sometimes turn unfair flags off. A [dead] post was killed by software, user flags or moderators, and enough vouches from users above a karma threshold restore it.

HN doesn’t publish the weights, so be suspicious of anyone who says they know the formula.

The second-chance pool

dang explains it here. Moderators and a few reviewers go through older submissions that got little attention and pick ones “in the spirit of the site.” Software then places them at random on the lower part of the front page. If the community is interested, they get upvoted and discussed. If not, they fall off. You can suggest a submission by emailing hn@ycombinator.com. dang says suggesting your own work is fine, “but we like it better when it’s just something you ran across.” Moderators sometimes email submitters to invite a repost, so put an email address in your profile.

3. Preparing a Show HN

What to ship

From the Show HN rules: on-topic means “things people can run on their computers or hold in their hands.” Off-topic means “blog posts, sign-up pages, newsletters, lists, and other reading material.” It must be ready to try: “Don’t post landing pages or fundraisers.” The project should be “non-trivial,” not a quickly generated one-off. Minor releases (“Foo 1.3.1 is out”) usually don’t qualify, but “a major overhaul is probably ok.”

Make it easy to try

“Please make it easy for users to try your thing out, ideally without barriers such as signups or emails.” dang adds that “HN users get ornery if you make them jump through hoops.” For B2B and dev tools, any of these works:

  • An open-source repo with a one-command install.
  • A hosted demo with sample data and no login.
  • A guest mode or sandbox account that’s ready to go.
  • For hardware, or anything that can’t be tried online, “a video, for example, or a detailed post with photos.”

If the product truly needs an onboarding call or approval, say so plainly in your text. HN’s Launch HN instructions warn against “bait-and-switch tactics” for exactly this reason.

Write the maker’s text

dang’s tips for Show HN text:

  • Include a clear statement of what the project is or does. Otherwise “the discussion will consist of ‘I can’t tell what this is’.”
  • Give “the backstory of how you came to work on this,” and explain “what’s different about it.” He says this “tends to seed discussion in a good direction.”
  • Link to relevant earlier HN threads. “Readers like those.”
  • Use “factual, direct language. Personal stories and technical details are great.”

The text can go in the submission’s text field, which shows at the top of the thread. If it doesn’t show there, post it as the first comment. dang says “Either way is fine.”

The Launch HN instructions (see section 6) include a template, plus advice around it, that works well for any Show HN:

  1. Introduce yourself.
  2. Say what it does in one clear sentence, worded differently from the title.
  3. Explain the problem: why it’s hard and why it matters.
  4. Tell the backstory.
  5. Explain how it works and what’s different, with technical details.
  6. Say how you make money, or plan to.
  7. End with an open invitation to share feedback.

Skip feature lists and one-sentence paragraphs (“They read like sales letters”), and explain any jargon.

4. Timing

HN doesn’t publish any guidance on the best day or hour to post, and this guide isn’t going to invent statistics. Advice about posting on certain weekday mornings US time is anecdotal, and the people giving it disagree with each other. dang has described /newest as “sort of a lottery, and even with multiple tickets it’s easy to lose.”

What is documented is that you need to be there. The Launch HN instructions say “All you need for HN is enough free time to engage with commenters on that day.” dang once buried a launch thread because the founders’ time zone meant they couldn’t respond to commenters. So pick a time when you and your technical cofounders can stay in the thread for several hours. Don’t tie the post to a press embargo: the Launch HN instructions advise against coordinating an HN launch with other events like press articles.

5. During the Launch: the Comment Thread

On HN the launch is mostly the comment thread. The Launch HN instructions describe how to handle it, and the advice applies to any Show HN.

Be present

“Reply when comments start appearing. Take breaks, but don’t leave the thread for long without answering.” The same instructions note that an unattended post falls down the page faster.

Answer as a person

  • Be generous with technical details about how it works, the problem and the market. “The community is insatiably curious.”
  • Answer directly, without addressing people by username, and avoid insider chat with friends or other founders.
  • Write replies yourself. The rule against generated or AI-edited text covers comments too.

Handle criticism well

The Launch HN instructions:

  • “Respond to objections by first finding something to agree with, even if it’s just the positive intention behind the comment.”
  • “When criticized, act like the critics are doing you a favor.”
  • “You never have to convince a critic—your goal is to win over the large silent audience.”

Admit limitations, give real numbers, and never argue about votes or flags. The guidelines say “Please don’t comment about the voting on comments.” If you think something is being abused, the guidelines say to email hn@ycombinator.com rather than post accusations of astroturfing in the thread.

Disclosure and astroturfing

  • Anyone from your company who comments should say so (“I work on this with [founder]”). HN’s rules don’t define a disclosure format; this is common practice, because undisclosed staff comments look like booster comments.
  • No booster comments from friends, investors, employees or customers. The Launch HN instructions say “Make sure your friends don’t post booster comments… Our readers have a nose for this,” and call it “the worst mistake you can make on HN!” Moderators may bury the thread.
  • If a friend or user has something substantive to add, dang says that’s fine, “but comments should not be promotional.”

6. Launch HN (YC Companies Only)

Launch HN is a separate format for Y Combinator-funded startups. The Launch HN instructions cover the details:

  • It’s curated. You fill out a form, the HN team makes an editorial decision, and the decision “is not about how good your startup is.”
  • Each YC startup gets one Launch HN, so timing matters.
  • The title format is “Launch HN: (YC batch) – ”, 80 characters or fewer, with a “neutral and factual” tag line.
  • The software places the agreed post on the front page after a few minutes. The FAQ lists startup launches as one of the few features HN gives YC.

dang has written that the bar is higher for Launch HN than for Show HN. The company should “feel real,” with a real product, visible pricing, and “something more than ‘Book a demo’.”

If you’re not a YC company, you can’t do a Launch HN, but the writing and commenting advice on that page applies to any HN launch. The page itself notes that “Some startups get funded by YC after a successful Show HN.”

7. After the Launch

What to measure

HN doesn’t give submitters analytics, so measure on your side, and focus on what tells you something:

  • Signups or installs that use the no-friction path you set up, tracked with a dedicated landing URL or referral source.
  • Repo stars, issues and pull requests opened during and after launch day.
  • The questions and recurring objections in the thread. They’re free product research and positioning input.
  • Inbound from partners, candidates and prospects who saw the thread. Ask “where did you hear about us?” for a few weeks.

Don’t treat points or rank as the goal. The FAQ says rank can’t be derived from votes and time alone.

Reposting

  • FAQ: “If a story has not had significant attention in the last year or so, a small number of reposts is ok. Otherwise we bury reposts as duplicates.”
  • dang: reposts are “ok once or twice if a story hasn’t had significant attention.” Once a story has had attention, a new Show HN needs “some major new development, not just a new feature.”
  • For a major-version Show HN, dang says to “add a comment linking to the previous Show HN and explaining what is different from last time,” and that this “should probably only happen once or twice a year.”
  • Never delete a post that’s going badly so you can try again.

8. Participating When Your Category Comes Up

Much of HN’s long-term value for a company is in ordinary threads where your category comes up (an anecdotal view, not a documented one).

  • Lead with knowledge, not the product. The welcome page’s test for a good comment is whether it “teach[es] us anything,” either by raising something not yet mentioned or by adding information from personal experience.
  • Mention your product only when it actually answers the question, and disclose. For example: “I work on [X], so I’m biased, but here’s how we handled the same problem…” Then share the technical answer, which should be useful even to someone who never clicks through.
  • Don’t hijack competitors’ threads. dang: “Please don’t hijack competitors’ Show HNs to promote your own thing. A single mention is arguably ok, but beyond that it gets too be too much, especially when related accounts are involved or it crosses into multiple threads.”
  • Keep the ratio honest. The guidelines’ standard is “part of the time.” An account that only shows up to mention its product is using HN primarily for promotion.
  • Be generous to other builders. “Anyone sharing work is making a contribution, however modest.” (Show HN rules)

9. Launch Checklist

  • Product can be tried today, ideally with no signup, email or call.
  • Demo, free tier or repo tested by someone outside the team.
  • Posting from a personal account with real participation history, not a brand username.
  • Email address in your HN profile.
  • Title starts with “Show HN:”, is plain and descriptive, with no superlatives, uppercase, exclamation points or gratuitous numbers.
  • Maker’s text written by hand: what it is, backstory, what’s different, technical details, pricing if any, invitation for feedback.
  • Links to relevant earlier HN threads included.
  • Founders and engineers free to stay in the thread for most of the day.
  • Team told: disclose affiliation in any comment, no booster comments, no “go upvote” posts anywhere.
  • Not timed to a press embargo.
  • Tracking in place for signups, installs and referrals from the launch.

10. Red Flags

Any of these risks penalties, flags, a buried thread or a hostile reception:

  • Asking anyone, anywhere, to upvote or comment, or sharing the link with a call to action.
  • Friends, employees or investors posting enthusiastic comments, especially from new accounts.
  • A Show HN for a landing page, waitlist, signup page, fundraiser, newsletter or blog post.
  • Signup walls or surprise sales calls between the reader and the product.
  • Marketing copy, superlatives or LLM-generated text.
  • Arguing with critics, getting defensive, or complaining about votes and flags.
  • Deleting and reposting, or reposting a well-discussed Show HN without a major change.
  • Promoting your product in competitors’ threads or across many threads.
  • Disappearing from the thread after posting.

Sources

Checked October 2026:

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