tang-vu Hacker News Posting Skill
Platform Overview
Hacker News (news.ycombinator.com) is Y Combinator's community for hackers, founders, and intellectual curiosity. The audience is senior developers, CTOs, and tech founders. Content that reaches the front page can drive 10K-50K visits in hours. The community is extremely anti-marketing and values substance over polish.
Platform Constraints
- Title: Max ~80 characters (longer titles get truncated)
- Submissions: URL or text (not both simultaneously)
- Show HN: Prefix for sharing what you've built
- Ask HN: Prefix for asking the community a question
- Comments: Plain text, supports markdown-lite
- No images: HN is text-only, no media uploads
- No tags/hashtags: None
Posting Steps (Browser Automation)
- Navigate to
https://news.ycombinator.com/submit - Wait for the submit form to load (must be logged in)
- Type the title (ASCII English only)
- For projects: prefix with "Show HN: "
- For questions: prefix with "Ask HN: "
- Either:
- Type a URL in the "url" field (for link submissions)
- OR type text in the "text" field (for text submissions)
- Click "submit" button
- Verify submission appears on /newest
Content Format
Show HN (Sharing Your Project)
Title: Show HN: {Product Name} -- {What it does in <10 words}
Text:
{1 paragraph: What problem does it solve?}
{1 paragraph: What's technically interesting about your approach?}
{1 paragraph: Current status and what feedback you're looking for}
{Optional: link to source code if open-source}
Link Submission
Title: {Original article title or descriptive summary}
URL: {Link to high-quality content}
Ask HN
Title: Ask HN: {Specific, clear question}
Text:
{Context for the question}
{What you've already tried or considered}
{Specific aspect you need help with}
Title Strategy
The title is 90% of what determines success on HN. Rules:
Do:
- Use the original article title (if submitting a link)
- Be specific and factual: "Show HN: An open-source alternative to Notion built in Rust"
- Include technical details that make it interesting
Don't:
- Use clickbait: "You won't believe..."
- Use marketing language: "Revolutionary", "Game-changing"
- Use ALL CAPS or excessive punctuation
HN Score Algorithm
- Ranking = (score - 1) / (time + 2)^gravity
- Score = upvotes - downvotes (only 500+ karma users can downvote)
- Gravity = 1.8 (posts decay quickly, ~6-12 hours on front page)
- "New" page shows recent submissions before they accumulate votes
- Posts flagged as self-promotional get penalized
Content Strategy
- Be technically substantive: HN rewards depth over polish
- Open-source is valued: Share source code when possible
- Explain the "why": Why did you build it? Why this approach?
- Be honest about limitations: The community respects transparency
- Engage in comments: Thoughtful replies boost engagement signals
Algorithm / Discovery Tips
- Post during US morning hours (8-11 AM EST) for maximum visibility
- Posts need early upvotes to escape /newest and reach front page
- Second-chance pool: some posts get a second visibility window
- Weekday posts get more engagement than weekends
- Show HN posts get special treatment in ranking
Best Practices
- Read HN guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- Comment quality matters more than post frequency
- Share the original source, not a re-blog
- If posting your own work, be transparent about it
- Build karma through quality comments before submitting
What to Avoid
- Astroturfing (fake upvotes or organized voting)
- Submitting low-quality blog posts or listicles
- Marketing speak in titles or text
- Resubmitting recently posted content
- Commenting on your own post with alt accounts
Known Pitfalls
- HN rate-limits submissions (don't post too frequently)
- New accounts have limited posting privileges
- Posts can be flagged and killed by moderators or community
- No way to edit a title after submission
- Penalty for self-submissions if not tagged as "Show HN"
Related Skills
content-writing— Show HN post templates