Product Hunt

Launch, hunt, and research products on Product Hunt with timing, assets, engagement, and anti-manipulation practices.

Security Scan

The skill is an instruction-only Product Hunt playbook and its requirements and instructions are consistent with that purpose — there are no installs, no requested credentials, and no instructions that reach outside the described PH launch/hunt/research scope.

Purpose & Capability

Name/description describe launching, hunting, and researching on Product Hunt. The skill has no install, no environment variables, and no binaries — all of which align with a pure guidance/playbook skill. Nothing requested appears unrelated to Product Hunt workflows.

Instruction Scope

SKILL.md and the companion docs stay focused on Product Hunt timing, assets, comment strategy, and research signals. They do not instruct reading local files, accessing unrelated environment variables, calling external endpoints, or collecting credentials. The instructions are procedural guidance rather than automation commands.

Install Mechanism

No install spec and no code files are included (instruction-only). That minimizes on-disk risk — nothing is downloaded or executed by the skill itself.

Credentials

The skill declares no required environment variables, no primary credential, and no config paths. That is proportionate for a documentation/playbook-only skill.

Persistence & Privilege

always is false (default). The skill does not request persistent system presence or elevated privileges and does not modify other skills or system config.

Assessment

This skill is essentially a best-practices playbook for Product Hunt and appears low technical risk because it has no code, no installs, and asks for no credentials. Before using it: (1) remember these are behavioral recommendations — following aggressive or automated outreach can violate Product Hunt's rules and lead to bans, so avoid bots, bought upvotes, or coordinated vote exchanges; (2) if you plan to automate posting or give any tool your PH credentials, those credentials are not requested by this skill and you should treat them as sensitive — only provide them to trusted, audited integrations; (3) confirm you have the maker's consent before hunting their product (the docs emphasize coordination); (4) review Product Hunt's Terms of Service/community guidelines to ensure the tactics you use comply; and (5) because this is instruction-only, the main risk is human misuse of the advice (ethical/policy risk), not technical exfiltration — proceed if you accept those behavioral responsibilities.

Quick Reference

Topic	File	Key Trap
Launch execution	launch.md	Wrong launch time (not 12:01 AM PT)
Hunting products	hunting.md	Hunting without maker coordination
Competitive research	research.md	Treating upvotes as validation
Engagement rules	engagement.md	Vote manipulation detection

Critical Launch Traps

Timing:

• Launch window: 12:01 AM to 11:59 PM Pacific Time — not your timezone
• Best days: Tuesday-Thursday. Mondays = catch-up mode, Fridays = weekend mode
• First 4-6 hours determine ranking trajectory — front-load your promotion

Assets (exact specs matter):

• Gallery images: 1270x760px — first image is EVERYTHING
• GIF/video dramatically outperforms static images (<30 seconds)
• Logo: 240x240px
• Tagline: 60 chars max, no buzzwords ("revolutionary", "AI-powered" = instant skip)

Maker Comment:

• Personal story, not corporate pitch — PH community is indie-friendly
• Why you built it, what problem you personally faced
• Update throughout the day with new info

First Paragraph Gets Truncated:

• Hook must be in first sentence — longer descriptions cut off in feed

Hunter Reputation System

Building Credibility:

• Quality over volume — 5 great hunts > 20 mediocre ones
• Each flop damages future hunt performance
• Top hunters have followers who get notified — real distribution advantage
• Hunt without maker coordination = product has bugs on launch day

Hunter Mechanics:

• Anyone can post, but established hunters have amplification
• Getting "Featured" is editor's pick — massive visibility boost
• Collections extend long-tail traffic beyond launch day

Engagement Anti-Patterns

What Gets Detected & Penalized:

• Multiple upvotes from same IP/device → shadowbanned votes
• Burst of upvotes from new accounts → astroturfing pattern
• Upvote circles (same 50 people always vote each other)
• External vote exchange groups (PH actively monitors Slack/Discord)
• Asking for upvotes in comment threads → public callout

What Looks Spammy:

• Copy-paste comments across products
• Generic "Congrats!" with no substance
• Mass DMs to makers
• Defensive/hostile responses to criticism

Competitive Intelligence Limits

Model Blind Spots — Don't Trust:

• Upvotes ≠ users ≠ paying customers (zero correlation)
• 80%+ of "Product of the Day" winners are dead within 2 years
• PH audience = indie hackers, designers, early adopters — NOT enterprise
• High upvotes + low comments often = gamed launch

Useful Signals:

• Comment sentiment reveals real user feedback
• "I wish it had..." patterns = your opportunities
• Maker response time indicates team readiness
• Velocity curve > total upvotes (200 in 2h > 500 in 24h)

Scope

Covers: launching products, hunting/curating, competitive research, community engagement. Does NOT cover: building the actual product, growth outside PH, paid acquisition.