Launch Hacker News

1. NO VOTE MOBILIZATION — EVER. HN is stricter than Product Hunt: never orchestrate supporter waves, never ask anyone (friends, team, users, your audience) to upvote, never coordinate voting. HN detects voting rings and penalizes them hard (rank penalty, [dead]/showdead, account or domain ban). If asked, decline and explain. The only compliant moves: post it yourself, optionally share the link genuinely with a few individuals who'd actually care, and be present in the thread. Every line must pass the banned-phrase scan in references/policy-compliance.md.
2. NO HYPE, NO MARKETING-SPEAK, NO EMOJI. HN's audience is skeptical engineers who punish spin. The voice is technical, humble, plain, and honest about tradeoffs and limitations. The Show HN title follows a strict, standard form: Show HN: <thing> – <plain, literal description> — no clickbait, no "revolutionary".
3. READY-TO-SHIP IS A GATE. HN is one-shot and unforgiving: the product must be finished enough to try now, work without a signup wall (a demo/repo accessible without an account), and the site must survive a traffic spike ("the HN hug of death"). If it isn't ready, say so before posting.
4. GROUND EVERY WORD IN THE REAL PRODUCT. Read .ulpi/launch/positioning.md if present, else the README, the live site (via browse), and the repo. Never invent features or metrics. For HN, name the real stack and the real limitations.
5. COMPOSE THE SHARED SKILLS, DEGRADE GRACEFULLY. Invoke launch-copy (HN asset profile) and launch-analytics (source hackernews). If a companion isn't installed, give the one-line install (npx skills add https://github.com/ulpi-io/skills --skill <name>) and fall back to the built-in reference — never hard-fail.
6. RUN THE PRE-FLIGHT GATE before declaring ready (references/preflight-gate.md). If one box can't be honestly ticked, it isn't ready — fix and re-run.
7. WRITE THE PACKAGE TO DISK under .ulpi/launch/hacker-news/ (+ the shared .ulpi/launch/positioning.md).

launch-hacker-news

Inputs

• $request: the product to post, or a specific Show HN goal (e.g. "write my title and first comment", "plan the thread"), plus optional links (live URL, repo/demo).

Goal

Produce a small, HN-appropriate, paste-ready launch package under .ulpi/launch/hacker-news/ (+ the shared .ulpi/launch/positioning.md):

• POST.md — the Show HN title (standard format), the URL to submit, and the founder's explanatory first comment (technical, honest about tradeoffs, names the stack, asks for feedback — no hype, no upvote ask).
• PLAN.md — when to post (US-Eastern weekday morning), the first-1–2-hours plan, a thread-engagement plan (prepared, non-defensive answers to the hardest likely questions), and the post-launch/second-chance plan.
• CHECKLIST.md — the readiness pre-flight gate.

Step 0: Discovery & companions

Resolve, asking only what you can't determine: the product (what it does, who for, live URL, repo/demo); whether it's genuinely ready (finished, tryable without signup, can take a traffic spike); whether the user wants a URL post or a text post. Note which companion skills are installed (launch-copy, launch-analytics); install-hint if missing, but proceed. Success criteria: product, readiness, and post type are known.

Step 1: Ground the product → .ulpi/launch/positioning.md

Reuse .ulpi/launch/positioning.md if present; else build it from the README, the live site (via browse), the repo, and project-context.md/.ulpi/design. For HN, additionally capture the real stack and the honest limitations. Save it as the shared source of truth. Success criteria: a brief no line will contradict — including the tradeoffs.

Step 2: Readiness check (HN-specific early gate)

Load references/show-hn-rules.md. Verify the product qualifies for Show HN (something people can try now — not a waitlist, landing page, or blog post) and is ready: tryable without a signup wall, a demo/repo reachable without an account, and the site can survive a spike. If it doesn't qualify or isn't ready, say so plainly and advise what to fix before posting. Success criteria: an honest go/no-go on whether this should be a Show HN at all yet.

Step 3: Write the post → POST.md

Hand the HN asset profile (references/show-hn-rules.md + references/first-comment.md) to the launch-copy skill to draft the Show HN: <thing> – <plain description> title (standard format, no hype) and the founder's first comment (what it is → why you built it → honest tradeoffs/limits → the stack → an explicit ask for feedback). Fallback: if launch-copy isn't installed, draft from those references. Before assembling POST.md, load references/policy-compliance.md and run its banned-phrase scan over the drafted title and first comment; rewrite any line that trips it. Assemble POST.md with the title, the submit URL (or the text-post body), and the first comment to paste immediately after posting. Success criteria: a compliant title and an honest, technical, hype-free first comment — paste-ready, scan-clean.

Step 4: Timing & thread runbook → PLAN.md

Load references/hn-mechanics.md and references/first-comment.md. Write into PLAN.md: when to post (US-Eastern weekday morning for the longest front-page daylight; the first 1–2 hours on /newest decide whether it reaches the front page), post the first comment immediately, then be present and reply fast. Add a thread-engagement plan: list the hardest likely questions/criticisms and a prepared, honest, non-defensive response to each (converting a skeptic in public is the win). Success criteria: the user knows exactly when to post and how to run the thread without improvising or getting defensive.

Step 5: Wire measurement → tag links & events

Invoke the launch-analytics skill — channel hacker-news (output dir) with utm_source hackernews (GA value) — to set UTMs on the links and wire signup/activation tracking. Fallback: a minimal inline UTM scheme (utm_source=hackernews&utm_medium=show-hn&utm_campaign=<launch>). Note: HN strips/penalizes obviously campaign-tagged primary URLs in some cases — keep the submitted URL clean and put UTMs on links inside the first comment / your site's own analytics. Success criteria: traffic and signups are attributable without gaming the submitted link.

Step 6: Pre-flight gate → CHECKLIST.md

Load references/preflight-gate.md and references/policy-compliance.md, run the gate end to end (including the banned-phrase scan) and write the result into CHECKLIST.md: title format correct, product qualifies + is tryable without signup, site can take the spike, first comment ready and hype-free, zero vote-soliciting/mobilization anywhere, honest about limitations. Fix any failing box and re-run. Success criteria: every box ticked; the launch is genuinely ready and compliant.

Step 7: Post-launch plan → append to PLAN.md

Load references/postlaunch.md. Append: the second-chance pool (HN may re-surface a good post — you can't game it), the repost etiquette (do not spam-repost; HN's rules), converting the skeptical traffic (no signup wall; genuine value), and the failure-mode reminders. Success criteria: the user knows what to do whether it hits the front page or stalls.

Guardrails

• Never mobilize votes or ask for upvotes — HN forbids it and detects rings; decline and redirect.
• No hype, no marketing-speak, no emoji; be honest about tradeoffs and limitations.
• The product must be ready (tryable without signup, survives a spike) before posting.
• Keep the standard Show HN: <thing> – <plain description> title format.
• Ground all copy in the real product, including the real stack and limits.
• Compose the shared skills; if one is absent, install-hint + fall back — never hard-fail.
• Keep the submitted URL clean; don't tag the primary link in a way HN penalizes.
• Write the package to disk; don't leave it as ephemeral chat.

When To Load References

• references/show-hn-rules.md — what qualifies as a Show HN, the standard title format, URL vs text post, the first-comment rule, and Launch HN (Steps 2, 3).
• references/hn-mechanics.md — ranking, /newest, the second-chance pool, and posting timing (Step 4).
• references/first-comment.md — the founder first-comment skeleton + the thread-engagement / responding- to-criticism craft (Steps 3, 4).
• references/policy-compliance.md — HN's anti-manipulation rules, the banned-phrase scan, and penalties (Steps 3, 6).
• references/preflight-gate.md — the blocking readiness + compliance gate (Step 6).
• references/postlaunch.md — the second-chance pool, repost etiquette, converting traffic, failure modes (Step 7).

Output Contract

Write under .ulpi/launch/ and report:

1. .ulpi/launch/positioning.md — the shared grounded brief (created or reused; includes the real stack + limits)
2. hacker-news/POST.md — the Show HN title, the submit URL/text body, and the founder's first comment
3. hacker-news/PLAN.md — posting time (ET), the first-hours plan, the thread-engagement plan, post-launch
4. hacker-news/CHECKLIST.md — the readiness gate result (every box ticked)
5. hacker-news/analytics.md — UTM map + signup/activation tracking (from launch-analytics)
6. a readiness verdict (qualifies / ready or not) and the compliance affirmation (zero vote-mobilization), plus which companion skills were used vs fell back to built-ins