hn-title_skill

Overview

This skill helps create, analyze, and improve blog titles specifically for Hacker News submissions. It uses HN-focused best practices to generate concise, technical, and authentic title options that increase the chance of landing on the front page. It also scores and refines candidates with concrete suggestions.

How this skill works

I ask for your current title, a short description of the post, or a link, then extract the core technical contribution, specific technologies, and measurable results. I generate 5–8 title candidates across proven HN patterns (technical deep dive, contrarian, results-focused, Show HN, etc.), score them on clarity, specificity, interest, authenticity, and conciseness, and return the top 3 with rationale and concrete edits.

When to use it

• You want to create an HN-optimized title for a new blog post or project
• You want to improve an existing title before submitting to Hacker News
• You want to check if a title is likely to perform well on HN
• You need multiple title angles (technical, contrarian, results-focused)
• You are preparing a Show HN or Ask HN post and want correct formatting

Best practices

• Be clear and direct: state exactly what the article covers and front-load the interesting part
• Be concise: aim for 8–12 words and 50–80 characters; remove filler words
• Show technical depth: mention specific technologies, numbers, or results
• Be authentic: avoid hype, superlatives, and clickbait phrasing
• Use pattern templates (e.g., Problem → Solution, How X works, Show HN) to structure titles

Example use cases

• Optimizing a technical deep-dive title like 'My thoughts on databases' into 'How PostgreSQL uses B-trees for indexing'
• Converting a vague launch post into a Show HN title: 'Show HN: Visual debugger for regular expressions'
• Turning a performance story into a results headline like 'Reducing Docker image size from 1.2GB to 30MB'
• Reworking a contrarian post to highlight the opinion and reason: 'Why we moved from microservices back to a monolith'
• Evaluating and scoring several title variants to pick the best for HN submission