Can Devs Do Something Submission Guide: What to Prepare First

Can Devs Do Something is a developer-facing showcase with a wry tone, aimed at people who will read the source before they read the pricing page. Different audience, different copy.

The short answer

The submission is the easy part. What decides whether Can Devs Do Something was worth the ten minutes is whether the listing gets published, whether the outbound link is followed, and whether the page is indexed six weeks later.

Before you touch the form

Put the repo, the docs and a changelog line in one place before starting. This audience checks whether the thing exists before reading what it does, and a dead link ends the visit there.

Submitting, in order

Link docs, repo or CLI
Write a technical one-liner
Choose the closest developer category
Submit with a changelog line
Expect blunt feedback

What Can Devs Do Something is

A developer-oriented project showcase where makers submit tools and projects for other developers to browse. The submission form is on candevsdosomething.com.

One thing that catches people out

Link the docs, not the landing page. Developer audiences want to see the API, the CLI or the repository before they care about the positioning.

Mistakes that waste the submission

Pasting a 500-character description into a 220-character field
Skipping the rules page, then resubmitting without changing anything
Using an address you will not control in a year
Ignoring a badge requirement that turns a link into a plain URL
Reporting submissions as if they were indexed placements

Checking what you actually got

Search the exact listing title in Google — absent means not indexed
Count how many outbound links sit beside yours on the page
Inspect the rel attribute on the link to your domain
Follow the link and confirm it lands on the page you submitted
Write the outcome in the sheet the same day

Where SaasHunt fits

SaasHunt is the launch half of the same plan: SaaS-specific, publishing at 08:00 UTC, daily and weekly Top 5 with the weekly winners going to the newsletter, and a dofollow link on every approved listing. Free requires the badge and can queue for up to 270 days; Premium at $9.9 skips the queue; Premium Plus at $12.9 adds earliest scheduling and a permanent featured slot; SEO Growth at $49 adds the newsletter and a dedicated review; DR Booster at $50 adds ten permanent dofollow links from DR 30–65 sites.

SaasHunt

Repo, docs, changelog

Three links that answer three questions: does it exist, how do I use it, what changed recently. Have all three reachable without a login.

This audience checks existence before it reads a description, and a dead link ends the visit.

Existence before description

A developer showcase is a credibility check disguised as a directory. The reader wants evidence that someone is maintaining the thing.

A commit from last week is stronger evidence than any paragraph.

Link the docs

Not the landing page. The docs show the API, the CLI, the configuration — the parts that decide whether the tool fits.

A landing page tells a developer nothing they cannot infer from the repository.

Tone and audience

These showcases often have a wry, direct voice. Matching it is a signal of membership; writing in launch-week voice signals an outsider.

Read three entries and adopt the register, not the jokes.

What developers verify

Whether it runs on their stack, what the licence is, whether issues get answered, and what the failure modes are. Two of those belong in the description.

The other two are visible in the repository.

Writing for a wry audience

Plain, specific, occasionally self-deprecating. Claims that could be tested will be tested, and the tone is how you signal you expect that.

Enthusiasm is fine; hype is not.

After the listing

Check for questions in the comments and answer them in public. This audience reads threads before clicking, and a well-answered question is the best advertisement available.

Two links are a listing

Repository and documentation. Everything else on this kind of showcase is decoration, because the reader's first action is to check whether something exists behind the description.

If both links resolve without an account, the listing has already done more than most entries in the catalogue.