indiehackers

name	indiehackers
description	Search Indie Hackers for relevant discussions about bootstrapping, AI tools, SaaS, and solo founders — then draft helpful, authentic responses that position TeamDay naturally. Uses public Firebase RTDB and Algolia APIs.
allowed-tools	Bash, Read, Write, WebSearch, WebFetch

Indie Hackers Engagement Skill

Find relevant Indie Hackers discussions and draft helpful responses that position TeamDay naturally. Indie Hackers is a community of bootstrappers, solo founders, and indie makers — TeamDay's core audience.

When to Use

• User asks to find Indie Hackers discussions about AI tools, SaaS, automation, etc.
• User wants to monitor IH groups for engagement opportunities
• User asks to draft a reply to an IH thread
• User says "check Indie Hackers" or "find IH conversations"
• Periodic social listening for brand mentions or relevant topics

Scripts

Search Indie Hackers

bun .claude/skills/indiehackers/scripts/ih-search.ts "<query>" [options]

Option	Default	Description
--index=VALUE	products	products, groups, users
--limit=N	20	Number of results (max 50)

Searches via Algolia (public search-only API key).

Read Post + Comments

bun .claude/skills/indiehackers/scripts/ih-thread.ts "<post_id>" [--limit=N]

Fetches the full post body and comments from Firebase RTDB (publicly readable).

Browse Recent Posts

bun .claude/skills/indiehackers/scripts/ih-thread.ts --recent [--limit=N] [--group=NAME]

Fetches the most recent posts, optionally filtered by group name.

Target Groups

These Indie Hackers groups are most relevant to TeamDay's domain:

Group	Relevance	Topics
Solopreneurs	Core	Solo founders, productivity, AI tools
AI & Machine Learning	Core	AI products, LLMs, agent tools
SaaS Products	High	SaaS tools, pricing, growth
Marketing & Sales	High	Marketing automation, AI marketing
Growth	High	Growth strategies, product launches
Product	Medium	Product development, MVP, features
Side Projects	Medium	Weekend projects, micro-SaaS
Bootstrapping	Medium	Revenue, funding, indie mindset

Workflow

Phase 1: Discovery

Search for relevant discussions and browse recent posts:

# Search for AI-related product listings
bun .claude/skills/indiehackers/scripts/ih-search.ts "AI agents" --index=products

# Search for groups discussing automation
bun .claude/skills/indiehackers/scripts/ih-search.ts "automation" --index=groups

# Browse recent posts in key groups
bun .claude/skills/indiehackers/scripts/ih-thread.ts --recent --limit=10

# Get recent posts from specific groups
bun .claude/skills/indiehackers/scripts/ih-thread.ts --recent --group=Solopreneurs

Good search queries for TeamDay:

• "AI agents" / "AI automation" / "AI tools"
• "Claude" / "Anthropic" / "Claude Code"
• "automate business" / "AI for business"
• "micro-SaaS AI" / "AI SaaS" / "AI startup"

Phase 2: Qualify Opportunities

High-value posts (prioritize):

• Questions asking for tool recommendations or comparisons
• Founders sharing struggles that TeamDay solves (automation, AI workflows)
• "Show IH" or product launch posts in the AI space
• Posts with 5+ replies and growing engagement
• Pain points about managing AI tools, scheduling tasks, or building workflows

Skip these:

• Posts older than 2 weeks (IH discussions have short lifespan)
• Zero-reply posts with no engagement
• Pure self-promotion posts (not a good place to engage)
• Posts about unrelated topics (crypto, drop-shipping, etc.)

Phase 3: Deep-Read Promising Posts

bun .claude/skills/indiehackers/scripts/ih-thread.ts "abc123def"

Understand:

1. What is the founder building or struggling with?
2. What comments already exist?
3. Is there a gap where TeamDay's approach adds value?
4. What's the tone — seeking advice, sharing experience, asking for feedback?

Phase 4: Draft Response

IH Tone Guidelines:

• Be a fellow founder, not a vendor. IH is a peer community.
• Share your own experience: "We built X because..." or "I've been using Y for..."
• Be specific about numbers: revenue, time saved, user counts
• Celebrate others' wins genuinely — the community values support
• Don't lead with your product. Lead with insight, relate to their journey.

Response Structure:

1. Connect — Relate to their situation as a fellow builder
2. Share value — Give actionable advice from experience
3. Mention TeamDay naturally — Only if directly relevant, as one option
4. Engage — Ask a follow-up question to continue the conversation

Example Good Response:

Congrats on hitting $1K MRR! That first milestone is the hardest.

On automating customer onboarding — I've been through this exact evolution. What worked for us was breaking it into stages:

1. First automate the emails (Loops or Resend + a cron job)
2. Then automate the data setup (we use AI agents that run on a schedule to prep each new account)
3. Last, automate the check-ins (hardest to get right)

For step 2, we actually built TeamDay partly because we needed AI tasks to run reliably on schedules. But honestly, at $1K MRR, a simple cron + Claude API script might be enough to start.

What's your current stack? Happy to share more specifics.

Example Bad Response (DO NOT write like this):

You should try TeamDay! We automate everything with AI agents. Sign up at teamday.ai!

Phase 5: Report

## Indie Hackers Engagement Report — [Date]

### Posts Scanned
- Browsed [N] recent posts across [groups]
- Searched: "[query 1]" ([N] results), "[query 2]" ([N] results)

### Top Opportunities

#### 1. [Post Title]
- **Group:** [name] | **Replies:** [N] | **Age:** [time]
- **Link:** https://www.indiehackers.com/post/[id]
- **Opportunity:** [Why this is worth engaging]
- **Draft Response:** [The response]

### Posts Skipped (and why)
- [Post] — too old / self-promo / off-topic

### Market Insights
- [Key themes, pain points, or trends observed]

Rate Limits

• Algolia: ~10,000 requests/hour (generous, no auth needed)
• Firebase RTDB: Public read, generous limits for read-only access
• No authentication or API keys required

Saving Results

Save engagement reports:

Write to: docs/indiehackers/YYYY-MM-DD-ih-engagement.md