Sign up today and explore Xicmo free for 48 hours600 credits, no card
Xicmo
Get started
Add as a preferred
source on Google

AI agentPart of the Xicmo team

Hacker News Agent

The Hacker News agent that finds the threads worth commenting on and drafts a Show HN that might survive the front page.

Watches the feed, finds relevant threads, drafts Show HN and Ask HN posts, and suggests comments.

Draft a Show HN
  • 48-hour free trial
  • 600 credits
  • No credit card required

Updated

xicmo/agents/hacker-newsRunning daily
  1. Today's run
  2. Describe the productDone
  3. Review daily draftsDone
  4. Submit it yourselfYour call

Ready for you

Example
  • Daily Show HN and Ask HN draftingReady to review
  • Thread discovery without an HN API keyNew
  • Comment suggestions in technical registerQueued
Waiting in your approval queueApprove
capabilities, one workspace
6capabilities, one workspace
steps from sign-up to first result
3steps from sign-up to first result
free trial, no card
48hfree trial, no card
a month on Standard
$159a month on Standard

Quick answer

What does a Hacker News agent do?

A Hacker News agent monitors the site for discussions where your product is genuinely relevant, drafts Show HN and Ask HN submissions, and suggests comments written for an audience that is unusually hostile to marketing language.

The constraint that shapes everything is the audience. Hacker News readers detect and punish promotional framing faster than almost any other community, and moderation is active. Useful output is therefore flat, specific and technical — closer to a changelog than to a press release.

Before and after

What changes when you use the Hacker News Agent?

Show HN and Ask HN drafts are generated daily, so a launch is a decision rather than an event you prepare for.

Manual Handled

Without Xicmo

  • A Show HN launch is a one-shot event you get maybe twice a year and nobody on the team has done before.
  • Relevant threads appear and vanish within hours, and you find them the next morning.
  • Comments written in marketing register get flagged immediately by an audience trained to spot them.
  • You have no read on what the audience actually responds to beyond folklore.
  • Nothing about the process is repeatable, so each attempt starts from scratch.

With Xicmo

  • Show HN and Ask HN drafts are generated daily, so a launch is a decision rather than an event you prepare for.
  • Thread discovery runs continuously and surfaces discussions while they are still live.
  • Drafts are written flat and technical, because that is the only register that survives on HN.
  • Repeated drafting against the same audience makes the pattern visible over time.
  • The whole loop is a daily habit rather than a twice-a-year gamble.

How it works

How does the Hacker News Agent work?

In three steps: describe the product, then review daily drafts, then submit it yourself.

Set up in minutes
  1. Step 1

    Describe the product

    The agent works from what your site says you do, in the plain technical terms the audience expects.

  2. Step 2

    Review daily drafts

    Show HN and Ask HN drafts arrive on a schedule, alongside threads where a comment from you would be relevant.

  3. Step 3

    Submit it yourself

    You post from your own account. Timing a Show HN is the part that decides whether it lands, and that judgement stays with you.

Capabilities

What can the Hacker News Agent do?

Watches the feed, finds relevant threads, drafts Show HN and Ask HN posts, and suggests comments.

6 capabilities

Daily Show HN and Ask HN drafting

Turns launch writing into a routine, so you are choosing from drafts rather than writing under pressure on the day.

Thread discovery without an HN API key

Finds relevant discussions with nothing to register for and no key to manage.

Comment suggestions in technical register

Drafts written flat and specific, because the marketing register is actively punished here.

Continuous feed monitoring

Runs on a schedule so threads surface inside the hours they are actually active.

Shared voice profile across social agents

Uses the same voice profile as the other channels, tuned down for an audience that dislikes enthusiasm.

Drafts queued for approval, never posted

Everything lands in a queue. The agent has no posting access to Hacker News.

Why it's different

Written for an audience that punishes marketing

Most social drafting tools optimise for engagement, which on Hacker News is precisely wrong — enthusiastic, benefit-led copy is the signal that gets a submission flagged and a comment downvoted. The drafts here are deliberately flatter than what the same agent would write for LinkedIn: specific, technical, and closer to describing what you built than to explaining why it matters.

Why this channel

A technical audience that converts unusually well

Hacker News is small compared to the mainstream social platforms, but its readership skews heavily towards engineers, founders and early adopters — the people who try new developer tooling and tell colleagues about it. A front-page Show HN reaches fewer people than a viral post elsewhere and more of the right ones.

Pricing

How much does the Hacker News Agent cost?

The Hacker News Agent is included from the Standard plan at $159 a month, which comes with 2,000 credits, and in every plan above it. Credits meter real AI usage rather than seats and refresh monthly. You can try it free for 48 hours with 600 credits and no card, or buy a 24-hour day pass for $5, and cancel any paid plan in one click.

Lite

$129$49/month

500 credits a month.

Hacker News Agent is not included; it starts at Standard.

Get Lite
Most popular

Standard

$199$159/month

2,000 credits a month.

Includes Hacker News Agent.

Get Standard

Pro

$299$199/month

4,000 credits a month.

Includes Hacker News Agent.

Get Pro

Not ready for a month? A day pass opens the Hacker News Agent and every agent but video for 24 hours. One payment, nothing renews.

Day pass, $5

FAQ

Hacker News Agent FAQs

The questions people ask before they switch the Hacker News Agent on. Anything else, ask a founder.

Still deciding?

Fifteen minutes with the team, on your site, no slides.

Book a 15-min call Contact us

Will posting AI-drafted comments get me flagged?

It can, if you post them unedited. Hacker News readers are unusually good at spotting generated text, and the drafts are a starting point rather than something to paste. Edit them into your own voice before submitting.

Does it post to Hacker News for me?

No. It has no posting access and never authenticates against HN. Drafts land in your queue and you submit them yourself.

Can it guarantee front page?

No, and any tool claiming otherwise is selling you something. Front page depends on timing, the audience that happens to be online, and whether the thing you built is interesting. The agent helps with the writing and the timing; it cannot help with the third.

Do I need an HN API key?

No. Thread discovery runs without one, so there is nothing to register for.

How often should I actually post?

Rarely. Show HN has community norms about frequency and the agent drafting daily does not mean you should submit daily — the drafts are there so you have options when you genuinely have something to show.

Does it publish or send anything without my approval?

Not unless you tell it to. Every agent drafts into a queue and stops there: you read it, edit it, and press publish, or you don't, and nothing leaves. The one exception is opt-in: a Content Writer drip schedule can publish each finished blog to a CMS you connected, and only if you choose that when you set the schedule up.

Do I need any technical setup?

Add your website URL and the agents start working. Connecting Search Console or Analytics makes the SEO and GEO agents considerably sharper, and both are OAuth — no keys to paste, no DNS records, no code on your site.

Is there a free trial?

Yes. Every signup gets 48 hours with every agent except the Video Agent, 600 credits to spend and up to 3 websites, with no card required. After that a $5 day pass opens the same agents for another 24 hours, or a monthly plan keeps them running. Credits meter actual AI usage rather than seats.

Can I cancel anytime?

Yes. Plans are monthly and cancel from billing in one click, with no contract or notice period, and you keep your plan until the month you paid for ends. Drafts you have already generated stay in your workspace.

Works with

Which agents work well with the Hacker News Agent?

Every Xicmo agent shares one workspace, one voice profile and one approval queue, so these run alongside the Hacker News Agent without extra setup.

All agents

48-hour free trial

Sign up today and run your whole marketing team free for 48 hours

  • 600 credits to spend, no card needed
  • Every agent: SEO, GEO, content, Reddit, X, email and more
  • Up to 3 websites, the same as a Lite plan
  • The Video Agent needs a subscription

The 48 hours start the moment you sign up.

Start your free trial See plans

The Hacker News Agent is included in the trial, and nothing publishes without your approval. See all agents