Writing social posts
Posting about work. The steps below run for any post;
By kind says
what changes between a launch and a progress note. Render mechanics and layout
live in
.
Start where the work is. Drafting from scratch runs 1→5. Ordering an existing
thread starts at 2. Refining finished copy runs 3→5. Checking copy that is ready
to go out is step 5 alone.
1. Find the exemplar post first
Name a real post that already worked for something comparable, recent, from
someone this audience respects. Copy its shape — post order, sentence
lengths, where the link sits — and write your own words into it.
Ask the user for the exemplar post; they know whose posts land with this
audience.
Given a status URL, read the post with
curl -s "https://cdn.syndication.twimg.com/tweet-result?id=<POST_ID>&token=a"
—
itself is behind a login wall, and one call returns one post, so a thread
needs every link.
Drafting from a blank page reliably produces copy that reads as generated.
Drafting against a shape does not.
Done when you can point at a specific post and state in one line what structure
you are borrowing.
2. One post, one job
Name the single thing this post does before drafting it. Everything that does
not serve that job is load, however true it is.
For a thread, that means one job per post, and the order is an objection
ladder — each post answers the next objection the reader raises, in the order
they raise it. The git-hunk debut, as a worked example:
| # | asset | objection |
|---|
| 1 | command table | what even is this? |
| 2 | demo video | looks like work |
| 3 | before/after still | what did that run actually do? |
| 4 | eval table | does it help? |
| 5 | (none) | how do I adopt it? |
Lead with whatever a practitioner can get without pressing play. For a
developer tool that is usually the command surface: it is self-evidently the
pitch, and it is the post people screenshot.
Done when every post has one job you can state in a few words, and each post
answers the objection the one before it raises.
3. Draft flat
One claim per sentence. State facts and let the reader supply the enthusiasm.
The numbers carry the post; a setup line before them is load.
Done when no sentence needs a second read to find its claim, and cutting any
remaining sentence would lose a fact.
4. Refine against the tells
Run
first — it catches em dashes, rule-of-three, negative
parallelism. Then hunt these, which survived it on a real draft:
| tell | before → after |
|---|
| rhetorical question answering itself | "Does it hold up? Same agent, 8 tasks…" → "Here are the evaluation results. Same agent, 8 tasks…" |
| setup-then-reversal beat | "You don't type these commands. I don't either." → "This is how I use it." |
| symmetric pair restating the image | "Left is what sat in the working tree. Right is what got committed." → "The debug print stayed in the working tree. Everything else got committed." |
| meta commentary on the reader | "the same run as a diff, for anyone who didn't press play" → cut the clause |
| explanatory tail | "version-matched, so the agent always reads the current one" → "version-matched." |
| instructing the reader to work | "The harness is checked in, so rerun it" → "The harness is in the repo." |
| overclaim | "AI agents can't hand you reviewable commits" → "won't" — nothing stops them, they just avoid it |
Three structural checks beyond the line-level tells:
- Copy that narrates its own image is load. The image is labelled already,
so the sentence carries the fact the picture proves but does not state.
- A claim belongs in exactly one post. "You don't type any of it" landed in
two replies before one got cut, then showed up twice again in the LinkedIn
draft.
- A fix propagates across platforms. → was right on X and
left the LinkedIn copy overclaiming the same fact for an hour.
Detector scores are noise on 60-word posts. Your own ear, read aloud, is the
instrument.
Done when each post has been checked against every tell row and all three
structural checks, one at a time.
5. Preflight
Mechanical, and worth running every time. Some of it is one
away.
- Every link returns 200.
- Char count per post. Premium raises the ceiling; the fold is still ~280, so
know which posts get a "show more".
- Alt text on every image.
- Anything the reader is meant to copy exists as selectable text, not only
inside an image.
- Images measured, not eyeballed — see .
- Every claim traceable to something you can link.
- Shipping something installable: the install command resolves to the version
being announced. Check the registry you publish to, not the tag — for PyPI,
curl -s https://pypi.org/pypi/<pkg>/json
Done when every bullet is checked against the real post, not assumed.
By kind
| kind | shape | opens with | media |
|---|
| launch | thread on the objection ladder | what a practitioner gets, per step 2 | every asset you have |
| progress / build-in-public | single post | what changed since last time | one clip or screenshot |
| technical note | single post, or a short thread if it needs a diagram | the finding, setup after | code still, diagram, or none |
| opinion | single post | the claim itself, first line | none — media dilutes a take |
| amplifying someone else | single post | what you took from it | theirs, credited |
A launch is the kind that usually earns a full thread, and the ladder sets its
length. The rest default to one post, and a thread has to argue its way in.
Voice
Period rhythm. Sentence case in replies. Contextual lead phrases on links
("Code:", "Eval harness:"). The post ends on its last claim — nothing tacked on
after it, no hashtag, thread emoji, or call to action.
Platform mechanics
- X — a link with no media attached unfurls into a card; media suppresses it.
In a launch thread the main post carries no link and the first reply carries
the repo. Post a thread in one sitting so latecomers meet it finished.
- Show HN — the title must begin with , which HN's guidelines
require. Submit the URL alone, then post the prepared first comment
immediately. Include the limitations section; it reads as confidence.
- LinkedIn — standalone, never a thread. Links go in the first comment.
Narrative register is fine here and wrong on X. The "see more" cut falls
around 140 chars on mobile, so the first two sentences have to carry the whole
hook; check what survives the cut, not just the total length.