---
id: '0002'
title: Launch and promotion playbook
status: open
evidence: MODERATE
sources: 1
created: '2026-03-22'
---

## Claim

Highest-impact launch channels for Mac dev tools, in priority order:

**Hacker News (highest single-channel impact):**
- Post as "Show HN: Apple-a-Day — macOS health checkups from your terminal (Python, open source)"
- Link directly to GitHub repo, not a landing page
- Post Tuesday-Thursday, 8-10am ET
- First comment: short, honest "why I built this" story — the watchman crash-loop incident is perfect
- Respond to every comment within 2 hours

**Reddit (sustained traffic, stagger across first week):**
- Day 2: r/commandline (850k members) — tool share
- Day 3: r/macOS (1M members) — "free alternative to paid Mac health tools"
- Day 4: r/Python (1.2M members) — focus on Rich/click implementation quality
- Day 5: r/macapps
- Build karma in each sub for 1-2 weeks before posting

**Awesome Lists (sustained discovery for months):**
- `phmullins/awesome-macos-commandline` (30k stars)
- `herrbischoff/awesome-macos-command-line` (29k stars)
- `alebcay/awesome-shell`
- `aharris88/awesome-cli-apps`
- Submit one at a time, follow each list's CONTRIBUTING.md exactly

**Other:** Product Hunt same day as HN. Dev.to technical writeup. Twitter/X short GIF demo.

## Supporting Evidence

> **Evidence: [MODERATE]** — https://www.markepear.dev/blog/dev-tool-hacker-news-launch, https://dev.to/dfarrell/how-to-crush-your-hacker-news-launch-10jk, https://www.star-history.com/blog/playbook-for-more-github-stars, retrieved 2026-03-22

## Caveats

None identified yet.
