How to Launch on Show HN (Hacker News) in 2026: Rules, Title, Post and Launch Day

Checked on 28 September 2026 against Hacker News's own pages: the Show HN guidelines, the site guidelines, the FAQ and the moderators' tips for presenting your work, which were last updated in March 2026. Quotes below are copied from those pages.

Show HN is the part of Hacker News where people post things they built. It is not a launch platform in the usual sense: there is no queue, no badge, no paid tier and no listing page that stays up. You get one thread, a few hours of attention from a very technical crowd, and honest feedback, sometimes brutally honest. For developer tools, open-source projects and anything a curious engineer would enjoy poking at, few places come close.

It also has rules that are stricter than most founders expect, and a culture that punishes anything that reads like marketing. This guide walks through the rules as HN writes them, then the practical part: the title, the text, your account, launch day, and what to do if nobody notices.

Is your product a Show HN?

The Show HN guidelines open with one sentence that decides most cases:

"Show HN is for something you've made that other people can play with."

Everything else follows from "play with". The guidelines list what counts and what does not:

• On topic: "things people can run on their computers or hold in their hands." For hardware, "you can post a video or detailed article." For books, "a sample chapter is ok."
• Off topic: "blog posts, sign-up pages, newsletters, lists, and other reading material. Those can't be tried out, so can't be Show HNs." Also: "Don't post landing pages or fundraisers."
• Not ready yet? "If your work isn't ready for users to try out, please don't do a Show HN. Once it's ready, come back and do it then."
• Updates: "New features and upgrades ("Foo 1.3.1 is out") generally aren't substantive enough to be Show HNs. A major overhaul is probably ok."

Two lines speak directly to 2026, when anyone can generate an app in an afternoon:

"The project should be non-trivial. Don't post quickly-generated one-offs; anybody can do that now. Share something that is deeply personal and interesting to you. Explain how and why."

"The project must be something you've worked on personally and which you're around to discuss."

The good news is in the same guidelines: "A Show HN needn't be complicated or look slick. The community is comfortable with work that's at an early stage." An unpolished tool that does one interesting thing well is a better Show HN than a glossy SaaS with a waitlist.

A quick self-check

• Can a stranger try it within a minute of clicking the link?
• Did you build it yourself, and will you be around to answer questions on the day?
• Is there something in it you find genuinely interesting: a technical choice, a constraint, a problem you had personally?
• If it is a new version of something already shown, is it a real overhaul rather than a feature release?

If any answer is no, fix that first. A launch platform or directory listing is a better fit for a product that is still a waitlist or a landing page: our guide to 21 launch platforms covers those.

Make it easy to try

This is the part most SaaS founders get wrong. The guidelines ask you to "make it easy for users to try your thing out, ideally without barriers such as signups or emails. You'll get more feedback that way." The moderators' tips add that "HN users get ornery if you make them jump through hoops."

Practical ways to remove the wall:

• A no-signup demo. A sandbox, a sample workspace or a read-only example that loads without an account.
• A guest mode that lets people do the core action once, with signup only to save their work.
• For developer tools: a one-line install, a playground, or a repository with a README that shows the tool running.
• For hardware or anything hard to try over the internet, the tips suggest "a video, for example, or a detailed post with photos."

Before posting, open the link in a private window on your phone and time how long it takes to see the product do its thing. That is roughly the experience of every HN reader who clicks.

Write the title

The mechanics are simple: "To post, submit a story whose title begins with "Show HN"." Everything after the colon is where most of the work is. The site guidelines apply to Show HN titles too:

• "Please don't do things to make titles stand out, like using uppercase or exclamation points, or saying how great an article is."
• "If the title contains a gratuitous number or number + adjective, we'd appreciate it if you'd crop it."
• "Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize."

The format that works is plain: the name, then what it does, in words an engineer would use. Here are the highest-scoring posts on the Show HN page on the day we checked:

Source: the Show HN page, 28 September 2026. Scores change by the hour.

Notice what none of them do: no "revolutionary", no "the best", no "10x", no exclamation marks, no emoji. Each one tells you what the thing is, and several tell you what is unusual about it ("where you decide where to place things", "browser-generated lofi"). A title like "Show HN: Acme – The AI-powered platform that transforms your workflow" says nothing an engineer can picture, and it reads as an ad.

A useful test: could a reader describe your product to a colleague using only your title? If not, rewrite it.

Write the text

You can post a link with text. The text appears at the top of the thread, and it is where the discussion takes its direction. The moderators' tips are specific about what it should contain:

• A clear statement of what it is. "Include a clear statement of what your project is or does. If you don't, the discussion will consist of "I can't tell what this is"."
• The backstory. "Include text giving the backstory of how you came to work on this, and explaining what's different about it. That tends to seed discussion in a good direction."
• Previous threads. "Include links to any previous HN threads that are relevant. Readers like those."
• No marketing voice. "Drop any language that sounds like marketing or sales. On HN, that is an instant turnoff. Use factual, direct language. Personal stories and technical details are great."

If the text does not show up at the top of the thread for some reason, the tips say to post it as the first comment instead: "Either way is fine."

Write it yourself, without AI

In March 2026 the moderators added a tip that is easy to miss and important:

"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). Reason: the community is super fussy about this right now, and LLM language leaves imprints on your text which are generating quite some backlash when it appears on HN itself."

They are clear that this is not a rule against using AI to build things: "we use them heavily ourselves and are all in favor of doing so. Just don't use them to generate or edit text that you post to HN." So write your post and your replies in your own words, typos and all. A slightly clumsy sentence from a real person lands better than a polished one that sounds generated.

A structure that works

Not a template to copy, but the order most good Show HN texts follow:

1. One or two sentences on what it is and who it is for. Plain words, no adjectives doing the selling.
2. Why you built it. The problem you kept hitting, what you tried before, what annoyed you about existing tools.
3. How it works. The interesting technical choices, the trade-offs, what you would do differently. This is what HN readers want to discuss.
4. What is rough. Known limits and what is not done yet. Saying it first takes the sting out of the comments that would point it out.
5. How to try it, including the no-signup path, and what kind of feedback would help you most.

Keep it short enough to read in a minute. The thread will pull out the details people care about.

Your account

Two small things from the moderators' tips that change how your post is read:

• Post as a person, not a brand. "Don't have your username be that of your company or project. It creates a feeling of using HN for promotion and of not really participating as a person." You do not need your real name, "just something to indicate that you're here as a human, not a brand."
• Put an email in your profile. Then the moderators can "contact you if we notice anything, and also so we can send you a repost invite. We do that sometimes."

It also helps if your account has some history beyond your own product. The site guidelines put it plainly: "It's ok to post your own stuff part of the time, but the primary use of the site should be for curiosity." An account that only ever shows up to promote reads exactly like that. Reading and commenting for a few weeks before you post costs nothing and makes you a member of the community rather than a visitor.

Launch day

How ranking works

The FAQ gives the basic formula: "The basic algorithm divides points by a power of the time since a story was submitted." In practice, the first hours matter most, because a post's score is weighed against its age. The same answer lists other factors: "user flags, anti-abuse software, software which demotes overheated discussions, account or site weighting, and moderator action." Karma does not help: to the question "Do posts by users with more karma rank higher?", the FAQ answers "No."

Every Show HN starts on the new Show HN page. "Once it clears a small points threshold, it will appear on the show page in the top bar." HN does not publish a best time to post, so pick a time when you can stay at your desk for the next several hours. That matters more than any timing trick.

Do not ask for votes or comments

This is the rule that gets the most posts buried, and HN states it without ambiguity:

"Users should vote for a story because they personally find it intellectually interesting, not because someone has content to promote. We penalize or ban submissions, accounts, and sites that break this rule, so please don't."

Comments are treated the same way: asking people to comment is "not in your interest: HN readers are sensitive to this and will detect it, flag it, and use unkind words like 'spam'." The Show HN guidelines repeat it for friends: "Please don't ask friends to upvote or comment. That's not ok on HN." The moderators' tips extend it to your users: "Make sure your friends and users do not add booster comments in the thread."

So no "we're live on HN, go upvote" messages to your team, your Slack communities or your newsletter. Sharing that you posted is one thing; asking for votes is what gets posts penalized. If a friend has something genuinely interesting to add, that is fine: "comments should not be promotional."

Answer every comment, especially the harsh ones

You are expected to be there. The guidelines ask commenters to "Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine," and the same standard applies to you when you reply. Some habits that help:

• Thank people for criticism and engage with the substance. "A good critical comment teaches us something." Often the harshest comment in the thread is the most useful one.
• Answer technical questions in detail. This is where HN is at its best, and where the thread keeps growing.
• Admit what is missing. "Not yet, it's on the list because of X" works better than defending a gap.
• Stay out of arguments. Reply to the point, never to the tone.

Threads stay open for a while (the FAQ says "Threads are closed to new comments after two weeks"), so late comments still deserve an answer.

If nobody notices

Many good Show HN posts sink without a single comment. It is common and it does not mean the product is bad. Because the score is weighed against the post's age, a post that gets no votes in its first hours tends to slide off the new page quietly.

• Do not delete and repost. "Please don't delete and repost. Deletion is for things that shouldn't have been submitted in the first place."
• A later repost can be fine. From the 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."
• Keep your email in your profile. The moderators sometimes send repost invites for posts they think deserved more attention.
• Come back with something new. "You can post a new release as a Show HN only if the new version is significantly different." When you do, "add a comment linking to the previous Show HN and explaining what is different from last time. This should probably only happen once or twice a year."

Show HN and the rest of your launch

Show HN is a conversation, not a listing. When the thread goes quiet, there is no page that keeps sending you visitors, and the audience is narrow: developers and technical founders. That is exactly why it works so well for dev tools and open-source projects, and why it is only one part of a launch for most products.

A typical order for a technical product:

1. Show HN once there is something people can try, for feedback from a demanding crowd while you can still change things.
2. Launch platforms for a permanent product page, reviews and ongoing discovery. You can launch on LaunchIt for free or skip the queue with Premium, and our platform guide compares 21 others on wait, price and rules.
3. Directories for long-term visibility in the places people browse for tools. Our directory list ranks them by domain strength.

For the full sequence, from pre-launch to the weeks after, see how to launch a startup and the product launch checklist.

Show HN checklist

• It is something people can try, that you built, and you will be around to discuss it.
• It works without a signup, or has a demo that does.
• The title starts with "Show HN:", names the product and says plainly what it does. No hype words, capitals or exclamation marks.
• The text says what it is, why you built it, how it works, what is rough and how to try it, in your own words, without AI.
• Your username is a person, not a brand, and your profile has an email address.
• You have cleared the next few hours to answer comments.
• Nobody has been asked to upvote or comment.
• If it sinks: no delete and repost. Wait, improve it, and come back with something new.