Show HN: how to post your project on Hacker News, and what qualifies

Hacker News (HN) is the link and discussion site owned and funded by Y Combinator, with an editorially independent team, according to its FAQ. Its FAQ describes Show HN as the place "for sharing your personal work" and notes that it "has special rules." The Show HN guidelines open with the core idea: "Show HN is for something you've made that other people can play with. HN users can try it out, give you feedback, and ask questions in the thread."

A few mechanics are worth knowing before you post:

• There is no separate form. You use the normal submit page. The guidelines say: "To post, submit a story whose title begins with 'Show HN'."
• Two lists, one threshold. Every Show HN appears on the newest list and on the shownew page. Once it "clears a small points threshold," it also appears on the show page linked in HN's top bar. HN does not publish the exact number.
• It has been a dedicated section since 2014. The HN account dang announced the Show HN section in a post titled "Show HN: Show HN" on July 3, 2014.
• It is not the same as Launch HN. HN's FAQ says Y Combinator gets three features on HN, one of which is that its startups' launches "get placed on the front page." They appear on HN's Launch HNs page. If you are not a YC company, Show HN is the route open to you.

The rule of thumb in the guidelines is whether readers can try the thing. "On topic: things people can run on their computers or hold in their hands." For hardware, "you can post a video or detailed article," and for books "a sample chapter is ok."

The guidelines are just as direct about what is out: "blog posts, sign-up pages, newsletters, lists, and other reading material." Those belong in a regular submission instead. They add: "Don't post landing pages or fundraisers." HN's Show HN tips (a comment by dang that the guidelines and the show page both link to) extend the list to market tests and curated lists, and explain why the line is firm: "If we allowed 'Show HN' on all those things, nearly every post would be a Show HN."

Four other conditions from the guidelines:

1. It has to be ready. "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." A waitlist does not count.
2. It has to 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." If your project took an afternoon with an AI app builder and has nothing unusual about it, this line is aimed at you.
3. It has to be yours, and you have to be there. "The project must be something you've worked on personally and which you're around to discuss."
4. Updates usually are not enough. "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."

What does not disqualify you: being early or rough. "A Show HN needn't be complicated or look slick. The community is comfortable with work that's at an early stage."

The table below sums up common cases for startups and indie makers.

The single most repeated instruction in HN's own material is to remove barriers. The guidelines ask you to make it easy to try your thing "ideally without barriers such as signups or emails. You'll get more feedback that way." Dang's tips put it more bluntly: "HN users get ornery if you make them jump through hoops."

A practical checklist based on the guidelines and tips:

• Link to the thing itself. A live demo, the app, the repository or a download, not a marketing page about it.
• Offer a no-signup path. A demo account, a guest mode, a sample file or a playground. If signup is truly unavoidable, say why in your text.
• For hardware or anything hard to try online, show how it actually works with a video or a detailed post with photos, as the tips suggest.
• Use a personal username. "Don't have your username be that of your company or project. It creates a feeling of using HN for promotion." You do not need your real name, just something that reads as a person.
• Add an email address to your profile if you are comfortable with it. The tips say moderators use it to contact you, and sometimes to send a repost invite.

The title has to begin with "Show HN". After that, the general HN guidelines on titles apply:

• "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 includes the name of the site, please take it out, because the site name will be displayed after the link."
• Crop gratuitous numbers: the guidelines turn "10 Ways To Do X" into "Ways To Do X" unless the number is meaningful.
• Don't editorialize or write linkbait.

In practice most Show HN titles follow one pattern: "Show HN:" then the project name, then a plain description of what it does. For example, a made-up project might be titled "Show HN: Tallyroll, a spreadsheet that runs in your terminal." The description matters more than the name. Dang's tips warn that without "a clear statement of what your project is or does," the "discussion will consist of 'I can't tell what this is'."

A Show HN is usually a link plus some text from you. HN's FAQ explains that you cannot put links inside a text submission, so the usual approach is to submit your project URL and write your explanation in the text field. Dang's tips say that text "should show up at the top of the Show HN submission, but if for some reason it doesn't, add it as a first comment to the thread. Either way is fine."

What the tips say to include:

1. The backstory and what is different. "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."
2. A clear statement of what it is or does, in the first line or two.
3. Links to relevant previous HN threads. "Readers like those."
4. Technical details and personal story, not marketing. "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."

A simple outline that fits those tips: what it is in one sentence; why you built it; how it works (stack, the hard part); what is rough or missing; how to try it without signing up.

Write it yourself. This is now an explicit rule. The site guidelines say: "Please don't put generated text in HN posts. Write your text yourself, because HN is for sharing between humans." In an edit dated March 28, 2026, dang added 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)." He added that this is not a rule against using LLMs in general, only against using them "to generate or edit text that you post to HN." The same guidelines ask you not to automate posting.

Building your product with AI is fine; the post and your replies need to be in your own words.

Be around. The guidelines require that you are "around to discuss" the project. Plan to spend the first few hours answering questions, and expect critical feedback: the Show HN comment rules ask readers to be respectful, but also say that when something isn't good, they needn't pretend that it is.

Do not ask for votes or comments. The Show HN guidelines say "Please don't ask friends to upvote or comment. That's not ok on HN." The FAQ is stricter: "We penalize or ban submissions, accounts, and sites that break this rule." Dang's tips also ask you to make sure friends and users do not add "booster comments," which HN users "consider it spamming."

Understand how ranking works. HN's 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." Posts by users with more karma do not rank higher, according to the same FAQ.

If it sinks, don't delete and repost. The guidelines say "Please don't delete and repost. Deletion is for things that shouldn't have been submitted in the first place." The FAQ allows that "If a story has not had significant attention in the last year or so, a small number of reposts is ok." HN also runs a second-chance pool: moderators and a small number of reviewers pick overlooked submissions and software places them "randomly onto the lower part of the front page." Dang has said you can email hn@ycombinator.com about an overlooked submission, including your own.

New versions. Per dang's tips, a new release can be a Show HN "only if the new version is significantly different," you should link the previous Show HN and explain what changed, and this "should probably only happen once or twice a year."

Show HN and directory listings do different jobs, and it helps not to expect one to do the other's.

• Show HN is a single discussion. It can bring a burst of technical readers and detailed feedback. It happens once per product (plus rare major overhauls), and HN's guidelines say "Please don't use HN primarily for promotion. It's ok to post your own stuff part of the time, but the primary use of the site should be for curiosity."
• Directory listings are lasting pages. A listing on a relevant directory stays up, can be found there and sometimes through search, and can be updated. Our post on directory backlinks covers which ones are worth it and how their links work.

The link on HN itself. HN does not document how it sets link attributes, so on September 30, 2026 we read the HTML HN served for its show and shownew pages. On the show page, 21 of 30 title links had no rel attribute (a followed link) and 9 carried rel="nofollow"; every nofollow link there belonged to a post with 6 points or fewer, and every post with 18 points or more (up to 407) had a followed link, though one 2-point post did too. On shownew, 28 of 30 links carried nofollow. That suggests the attribute can depend on how a post does, but it is a one-day snapshot of the HTML, not a documented rule, and it may change. Treat a Show HN as a way to reach people, not as a backlink.

A sensible order for a small launch:

1. Get the product to a state where people can use it without signing up, which Show HN requires anyway.
2. Post the Show HN yourself, in your own words, when you can stay for the discussion.
3. Use what the thread tells you (confusing copy, missing features, the one-line description that finally made sense) to write your directory listings.
4. Submit to directories that match your category, and check that each listing actually went live.

The last step is what VibeLaunch is built for. According to its homepage, it matches your product to directories that fit, drafts each submission to the site's requirements, and then checks that the listing and its backlink went live. It handles directory submissions; your Show HN is something you post yourself, and HN's guidelines ask you not to automate posting there anyway.

What we don't know. HN's guidelines, Show HN rules and FAQ do not name a best day or time to post; the ranking the FAQ describes depends on points and time since submission, not the hour. Third-party timing studies exist, but none is an HN statement, so we left their numbers out. The practical rule from HN's own pages is to post when the project is ready to try and you can stay to discuss it for several hours. HN also does not publish the points threshold for the show page, the weights in its ranking, a title length limit in its guidelines, or how it decides which links get rel="nofollow". We could not see the submit form's own limits without an account. Our link check covered 60 title links on one day. HN's rules and tips change (the no-LLM tip was added on March 28, 2026), so check the linked pages before you post.

How this post was put together. We did not post a Show HN for this article. We read HN's Show HN guidelines, site guidelines and FAQ, dang's Show HN tips (linked from the Show HN guidelines and the show page), his 2014 announcement of the section and his explanation of the second-chance pool, all on September 30, 2026, and we read the link markup on HN's show and shownew pages the same day. Every rule quoted here links to its source below.