Product Launch skill for Codex
Product Hunt and Show HN without the cringe. Codex picks a launch shape for your product and audience, checks the product and infrastructure can survive a spike, and drafts a post for each venue in its own voice: Product Hunt listing and maker comment, a Show HN that HN readers will engage with, rule-checked community posts and the launch email. It plans the day hour by hour and measures activated users per venue instead of votes.
curl -fsSL codexskills.dev/install.sh \ | sh -s -- product-launchInstalls to ~/.agents/skills/product-launch/ for every project on this machine.
curl -fsSL codexskills.dev/cli.mjs -o codex-skills.mjsnode codex-skills.mjs install product-launchThe CLI also searches, updates and removes skills. Run it with no arguments to pick from a list. Needs Node 20.12+.
curl -fsSL codexskills.dev/install.sh \ | sh -s -- --project product-launchInstalls to .agents/skills/product-launch/ in the current repository. Commit it and everyone who runs Codex there gets it.
curl -fsSLO codexskills.dev/downloads/product-launch.zipunzip -o product-launch.zip -d ~/.agents/skills/The archive holds the skill folder with its generated agents/openai.yaml. Unzip into .agents/skills/ to scope it to a repo.
& ([scriptblock]::Create((irm codexskills.dev/install.ps1))) product-launchPowerShell 5.1 or 7. Installs to %USERPROFILE%\.agents\skills\. Add -Project for the current repo.
104-line POSIX script. No sudo, no telemetry. Read install.sh
Use it in Codex
Start a prompt with $product-launch, or pick it from /skills.
You can also just describe the task: Codex reads the description below and loads the playbook when your request matches.
What Codex reads before loading it
Runs a launch playbook for software products and major features - readiness checklist, launch-day timeline, Product Hunt listing and maker comment, Show HN post, Reddit and community posts within each venue's rules, launch email and social, press and partner outreach, and a post-launch metrics review. Use when asked to plan a launch, prepare a Product Hunt launch, write a Show HN post, decide where and when to launch, or make sure the site and product survive a traffic spike on launch day.
Use it when
- A new product or major feature is launching and needs a venue-by-venue plan
- You need a Product Hunt listing, maker comment or Show HN post written
- You want a readiness checklist covering load, analytics and support before launch day
- You need to measure which launch venue produced activated users
Use something else when
- You need the broader positioning, pricing and channel strategy: use go-to-market-plan
- You only need posts for ongoing social accounts: use social-media-content
How to check the result
A first-time user completes signup to first value unaided before launch, and the launch-day dashboard shows signups and activations split by venue UTMs.
The mistake it prevents
Asking friends and colleagues to upvote the Product Hunt or HN post, which both sites detect and penalise.
A launch is done well when the product works for strangers without hand-holding, every venue gets a post written for its own culture and rules, the team is available to answer for the whole first day, and success is measured by activated users rather than upvotes. A launch is a spike; plan what keeps the people it brings.
Decide the launch shape first
| Situation | Launch shape |
|---|---|
| New product, developer audience | Show HN + targeted communities + Product Hunt on a different day |
| New product, broad SaaS / consumer audience | Product Hunt + social + email list + communities |
| Major feature for existing users | Changelog + email to users + in-app announcement + social; a Show HN only if it is independently usable |
| Open source project | Show HN + GitHub README polish + relevant subreddits/Discords + newsletters in the niche |
| Paid or waitlist-only product | Fix that first for HN: Show HN posts need something people can try now |
Stagger venues across days when the team is small: answering comments well on two big venues at once is hard, and a second day gives a second spike.
Readiness checklist (T-14 to T-2 days)
- [ ] Product works end to end for a new account on a clean browser, no invite needed
- [ ] Signup is short; a demo or sandbox exists if signup is unavoidable
- [ ] Landing page states what it is, who it is for, pricing (or "free"), and has a working CTA
- [ ] Load: static assets on a CDN, signup and core API load-tested at ~10x normal peak
- [ ] Rate limits and abuse protection on signup and free tiers
- [ ] Error tracking and uptime alerts on; someone owns on-call that day
- [ ] Analytics: signup, activation event and UTM-tagged links per venue (see utm-attribution)
- [ ] Docs/FAQ cover install, pricing, privacy, data handling, roadmap questions
- [ ] Assets: logo, 3-6 screenshots or GIFs, 30-90 s demo video, short and long descriptions
- [ ] Launch posts drafted for every venue and reviewed by the user
- [ ] Team calendar blocked for launch day; reply rota for every time zone that mattersCheck the repo for launch blockers before the date: open P0 bugs, pending migrations,
feature flags still off for the public. Read AGENTS.md for the deploy process, and do
not deploy on launch morning without the user’s go-ahead.
Product Hunt
- The Product Hunt day starts at 12:01 AM Pacific; launching early in that day gives the full 24 hours. Weekdays bring more traffic and more competition; weekends are quieter.
- Self-launching is normal; a well-known hunter is optional.
- Listing: name, tagline (short, concrete, no hype words), description, topics, gallery (first image is the thumbnail: show the product, not a logo), demo video, pricing tag.
- Maker comment: posted right at launch. Who you are, the problem, why you built it, what is different, what feedback you want, any launch offer.
- Product Hunt’s rules forbid asking for upvotes or vote manipulation. Ask people to “check it out and share feedback”. Votes from brand-new accounts and coordinated rings are discounted and can get the launch penalised.
- Reply to every comment, quickly and specifically, for the whole day.
**Tagline:** Turn Postgres slow-query logs into index fixes
**Maker comment:**
Hi Product Hunt, I'm <name>, <role>. For two years I <specific pain>.
<Product> <what it does in one sentence>. Unlike <the usual alternative>, it <difference>.
It's <free / pricing> and <setup time>. I'd love feedback on <specific thing>.Show HN
Hacker News rewards substance and punishes marketing tone.
- Show HN is for something people can try: a product, a tool, an open source repo. Blog posts, landing pages, waitlists and fundraisers do not qualify.
- Title:
Show HN: <Name> - <plain description of what it does>. No superlatives, no exclamation marks, no emoji. - Link to the thing itself (repo or app), not a marketing page if avoidable; make it usable without signup where possible.
- Post a first comment as the maker: background, how it works technically, trade-offs, what is not done yet, what you want feedback on.
- Never ask anyone to upvote or comment, and never share the direct link in a “go vote” message; HN detects voting rings and penalises them. Sharing that you launched is fine.
- Answer critical comments with facts and thanks. Do not argue, do not get defensive, never use alt accounts.
- If it gets no traction, the moderators sometimes re-feature posts via the second-chance pool; you can also email them; do not repost the same thing the next day.
Reddit and communities
- Read each subreddit’s rules and sidebar; many ban self-promotion or allow it only in weekly threads. Lead with value: the story, the lesson, the open source code.
- Use your own long-standing account; disclose you are the maker.
- Slack/Discord communities, forums and niche newsletters: post only where launches are welcome, in the right channel, written for that group.
- Do not post the same text in ten places in one hour; spam filters and moderators notice.
Owned channels
- Email to your list and users: one email on launch day with the one action you want. Sending is irreversible; get the user’s approval on final copy and segment.
- Social: founder posts outperform brand posts for launches; write per platform
(
social-media-content). - Changelog/blog post: the canonical long-form explanation everything else links to.
- In-app announcement for existing users.
Launch-day timeline (example, Pacific time)
| Time | Action |
|---|---|
| 00:01 | Product Hunt live; maker comment posted |
| 06:00-08:00 | Show HN (on its own day) / main social posts; team online |
| 08:00 | Email to list; personal messages to supporters who asked to know |
| All day | Reply to every comment within ~30 minutes; log bugs and feature requests |
| Hourly | Check error rates, signups, activation, server load |
| End of day | Thank-you post; summary of feedback to the team |
After the launch
- Day 1-7: fix the top reported bugs fast and reply in the original threads that they are fixed; it converts sceptics.
- Measure per venue (UTMs): visits, signups, activation rate, paid conversions after 7/30 days. Upvotes and rank are vanity metrics.
- Follow up with everyone who asked for something specific.
- Write the retro: what drove activated users, what broke, what to repeat.
Gotchas
- Launching a product that requires a sales call: HN and PH users bounce.
- Demo video starts with a logo animation; first 3 seconds should show the product working.
- Signup emails stuck in spam on launch day; test deliverability beforehand.
- Free tier abuse (crypto miners, spam signups) on launch day; have limits ready.
- Coordinated upvote asks in a team Slack; this is what gets launches penalised.
Verification
- A teammate who has never used the product completes signup to first value unaided before launch day.
- Every venue post was checked against that venue’s current rules.
- Launch-day dashboard shows UTM-attributed signups per venue.
Output template
## Launch plan: <product> - <date(s)>
**Shape:** venues by day
**Readiness:** checklist with owner and status
**Assets:** list with links
**Posts:** PH listing + maker comment | Show HN title + first comment | Reddit/community posts | email | social
**Timeline:** launch-day table
**Success metrics:** activated signups per venue at D1/D7/D30
**Needs user approval:** final post copy, email send, any deployWhat the zip contains
SKILL.md plus the interface file below. Nothing runs on install.
agents/openai.yaml
Gives the Codex app a display name, a one-line description and a starter prompt for this skill.
interface:
display_name: "Product Launch"
short_description: "Product Hunt and Show HN without the cringe"
default_prompt: "$product-launch We're launching on Product Hunt in two weeks. Make a full plan and draft the listing"About this skill
Written and maintained by the Codex Skills editors to the same editorial standard as every skill here: a selective description, a real workflow, known pitfalls and a way to verify the work. First published , last updated . MIT licensed. Something wrong or out of date? Tell us.