Hacker News

Free route community

Researched from public pages — no submission was run · sources read 2026-09-25. Rules change — recheck the platform's own pages before submitting.

Requirements

A Hacker News account is required to submit (the submit form is behind login)
On-topic = 'anything that gratifies intellectual curiosity'; most politics/crime/sports/celebrity stories are off-topic
Show HN is for something you made that people can actually try out — no landing pages, sign-up pages, newsletters, or fundraisers
Do not use HN primarily for promotion: 'It's ok to post your own stuff part of the time'
Never solicit upvotes/comments; don't delete-and-repost

A working product URL that users can try without barriers (Show HN) or a substantive canonical article
A clean title: use the original title, no clickbait, no site name, strip gratuitous numbers ('10 Ways to X' → 'How to Do X'), append [video]/[pdf] when relevant
For Show HN: title starts with 'Show HN', and be present to answer questions in the thread
An account with some normal community history is de facto safer than a fresh promo-only account

Create/verify an HN account
For a product launch use a 'Show HN: <Product Name>' title and the product's tryable URL via /submit; otherwise submit the canonical article URL
Stay in the thread answering questions thoughtfully
Show HN posts appear on /shownew immediately and reach /show after clearing a small points threshold

Vote-ring detection is aggressive — do not ask friends to upvote or share a direct link for votes
Brand-new accounts submitting marketing links are commonly flagged/killed
Minor version releases ('Foo 1.3.1 is out') are not substantive enough for Show HN; major overhauls are ok
Don't editorialise the title — the title field is the single biggest rejection/edit trigger
HN is hostile to obviously AI-generated copy in the thread — write comments yourself

The submission is public at /item?id=<id> and visible on /newest (or /shownew for Show HN) — frontpage placement is ranking-dependent, not guaranteed

Exact karma/account-age thresholds for submission ranking (undocumented)
Whether a domain is banned/deprioritised until moderators respond to [email protected]