Show HN Launch Plan (SHA-308)

Goal

Public launch of Shardlyn with:

• Hacker News Show HN post
• Technical blog post on the Shardlyn blog
• Cross-post adaptation for dev.to and Hashnode

This document is the prep + execution runbook. Actual posting is manual.

Scope Delivered in Repo

• Blog post draft/content integrated into web blog:
  • How We Built Shardlyn: Lessons From Replacing Pterodactyl
• Launch runbook (this file)

Launch Assets

Blog Post (Technical)

• Title: How We Built Shardlyn: Lessons From Replacing Pterodactyl
• URL slug: /blog/how-we-built-shardlyn-replacing-pterodactyl
• Purpose:
  • establish technical credibility
  • explain architecture decisions
  • support HN comments with a deeper reference

Show HN Post

Recommended title:

• Show HN: Shardlyn - Game server management platform (Pterodactyl alternative)

Alternative titles to test (only if needed):

• Show HN: Shardlyn - Infrastructure-first game server management (Pterodactyl alternative)
• Show HN: Shardlyn - BYO-cloud game server platform with backups, alerts, and Git deploy

Timing

Target launch window (best effort):

• Monday or Tuesday
• 9:00-11:00 ET

Execution rule:

• Only post if the author/operator can stay available for 6-8 hours for replies.

Pre-Launch Checklist (T-48h to T-2h)

Product + Infra

• [ ] Production UI deployed with latest marketing/blog content
• [ ] API healthy (/health or equivalent)
• [ ] Signup flow tested end-to-end
• [ ] Billing/subscription flow smoke-tested (at least sandbox path)
• [ ] PWA/web app loads correctly on mobile + desktop
• [ ] Key dashboards/pages load under normal latency

Content

• [ ] Blog post proofread (technical clarity + grammar)
• [ ] Screenshots/GIFs ready (dashboard, metrics, provisioning, backups)
• [ ] Landing page copy aligned with Show HN positioning
• [ ] dev.to version adapted (less product marketing, more engineering story)
• [ ] Hashnode version adapted (same as dev.to, canonical link to primary blog)

Analytics / Tracking

• [ ] Registrations metric visible (daily + cumulative)
• [ ] Paid conversion metric visible (monthly cohort baseline)
• [ ] HN referral tracking available (UTM or referrer dashboards)
• [ ] Error monitoring checked for signup/auth flows

Operations Readiness

• [ ] Person posting on HN is available for 6-8h
• [ ] Backup responder available (optional but recommended)
• [ ] Internal checklist for incident rollback/contact ready

Launch Day Runbook

T-30 min

• [ ] Confirm UI/API deploy state is green
• [ ] Re-test signup and one core flow (create workload / node flow if possible)
• [ ] Open tabs/documents:
  • HN submission page
  • blog post URL
  • metrics/analytics dashboards
  • logs/error monitoring
  • this runbook

T-0: Publish

1. Publish blog post on Shardlyn blog (if not already live)
2. Submit Show HN post on Hacker News
3. First comment (optional) with concise extra context:
   • who it is for
   • what is unique (BYO-cloud, infra-first, observability, backups, automation)
   • request for feedback

T+0 to T+8h: Response Loop

Guidelines:

• Answer quickly, calmly, and technically.
• Be transparent about limitations/roadmap.
• Prefer specifics (stack, constraints, tradeoffs) over marketing language.
• Do not argue about preferences (e.g., panel choice); explain design rationale.

Priority comment types to answer first:

1. Security / credential handling questions
2. Reliability / backups / data loss questions
3. Architecture comparisons (Pterodactyl, Kubernetes, Nomad, DIY Docker)
4. Pricing and business model questions
5. Feature gaps / roadmap questions

Suggested response pattern:

• acknowledge question
• answer with concrete implementation details
• state current limitation if applicable
• mention roadmap only if there is a realistic plan

Monitoring During Launch

Track at least hourly:

• registrations count
• active sessions / traffic spikes
• signup errors
• API error rate
• billing conversion events (if any)
• HN points/comments/rank (manual)

If incident happens:

• prioritize product stability over reply speed
• post a short transparent update in HN thread if user-facing impact is significant
• keep notes for postmortem + follow-up post

Show HN Submission Draft

Title:

• Show HN: Shardlyn - Game server management platform (Pterodactyl alternative)

Body draft (HN submission text/comment):

I built Shardlyn as an infrastructure-first alternative to traditional game server panels.

The main idea is to keep the workflows people actually need (console, templates, permissions, backups) but build them on top of a BYO-cloud control plane instead of treating infrastructure as an afterthought.

Today it supports multi-cloud node provisioning (AWS, GCP, Hetzner, OCI, DigitalOcean, Azure), Docker-native workloads, metrics/alerting, backups, Git-based deploys, RBAC, and API automation.

I wrote a technical post about architecture decisions and lessons learned while replacing older panel-style workflows:

[blog URL here]

I’d love feedback, especially from people who run their own game servers or have outgrown existing panels.

Notes:

• Keep the initial post concise.
• Avoid a feature wall in the first paragraph.
• Put the technical post link in the text or first comment.

Cross-Post Checklist (dev.to / Hashnode)

dev.to

• [ ] Adapt intro for broader developer audience (less HN context)
• [ ] Add canonical URL to Shardlyn blog post
• [ ] Use tags (example): webdev, devops, docker, opensource (adjust as appropriate)
• [ ] Replace product-heavy phrasing with architecture tradeoffs and lessons

Hashnode

• [ ] Add canonical URL to Shardlyn blog post
• [ ] Keep same technical core, reduce marketing copy
• [ ] Include 1-2 diagrams/screenshots if available

Success Metrics (from SHA-308)

Primary goals for the launch cycle:

• 500 registered users
• 50 paying users in the first month
• Hacker News: > 100 points

Recommended tracking cadence:

• Day 0 (launch day)
• Day 1
• Day 3
• Day 7
• Day 30 (paid conversion checkpoint)

Post-Launch Follow-Up

• [ ] Summarize HN feedback themes (positive, objections, requests)
• [ ] Create issues for repeated feature requests/bugs
• [ ] Publish small follow-up changelog if fixes ship quickly
• [ ] Update marketing copy based on confusing messaging seen in comments

Owner

• Primary: Caio
• Backup (optional): TBD