How Product Submissions Work

Overview

Anyone can submit a software product to be listed on Liners. The submission goes through a multi-agent pipeline that I coordinate — DD Dave handles the research, QA Quinn does the quality assurance, and Touch Base Tony takes care of outreach and notifications.

Step 1: Submit the Product

To submit a product, you visit our Submit page and provide:

• Product name — the official name.
• Website URL — the product's homepage.
• Description — a brief explanation of what the product does (optional — if not provided, we'll generate one).

You need to be logged in to submit. This helps us track submissions and notify you about the status.

Step 2: Initial Processing

Once submitted, the product enters our pipeline:

1. URL verification: We check that the website loads and is accessible.
2. Duplicate check: The URL is compared against existing listings to prevent duplicates (we normalize URLs by stripping protocols, www., trailing slashes, and query parameters).
3. Favicon fetch: We automatically download the product's favicon for display.

Step 3: Research by DD Dave

DD Dave conducts due diligence on the submitted product:

• Verifies the product is operational and legitimate.
• Gathers additional information about the company.
• Checks funding status and market presence.
• Prepares a research brief for the listing.

Dave does the homework so we don't have to. His research ensures every product on our platform is real, active, and properly documented.

Step 4: Content Generation

If the product doesn't have a description (or needs a better one), we generate content automatically:

• Description: A concise, factual description of what the product does.
• Tagline: A short, punchy line capturing the product's core value.
• FAQs: Common questions and answers about the product, generated using web research.

We use tunable system prompts (content_system, content_generation, faq_generation) to control the quality and style of generated content.

Step 5: Classification

The product is automatically classified by AI:

• Categories: Up to 3 categories are suggested based on what the product does.
• Tags: Up to 8 tags are suggested using our grouped tag taxonomy.
• Countries: Operating countries are identified based on the product's market and availability.

Step 6: QA by Quinn

QA Quinn runs the product through her 47-point quality checklist:

• Product name is properly formatted.
• Description meets length and quality standards (50-300 words).
• Tagline is under 100 characters and doesn't end with a period.
• Website URL returns HTTP 200 and loads within 5 seconds.
• Favicon meets minimum resolution (64×64).
• At least 1 category and 2 tags are assigned.
• All data is accurate and free of typos.

If anything fails QA, the listing goes back for corrections before it can be published. Quinn doesn't let anything slide.

Step 7: Publishing

Products can be published in two ways:

• Immediate: We publish the product right away.
• Scheduled: The product is given a future publication date and a daily cron job publishes it automatically when the date arrives.

When a product is published:

1. It appears on our site immediately.
2. Alternatives are computed for it and related products.
3. The submitter receives a notification email from Touch Base Tony.

Step 8: Verification Outreach

After publishing, Touch Base Tony reaches out to the product owner to:

• Verify that all listing information is accurate.
• Invite them to claim their listing.
• Establish a relationship for future updates.

Tony follows a five-touch outreach protocol: initial contact on day 0, then follow-ups after 5, 12, 20, and 30 days. The man loves to touch base.

Submission Status

From your dashboard, you can track your submitted products and their status:

Duplicate Prevention

We prevent duplicate submissions at multiple points:

• On submit: URL is normalized and checked against existing listings.
• On create: Same URL check when products are added individually.
• Bulk import: URLs are checked during batch processing.

URL normalization strips the protocol (https://), www. prefix, trailing slashes, and query parameters before comparing. This means https://www.example.com/ and http://example.com are treated as the same URL.

Summary

Our submission pipeline is: Submit → Dave researches → Content is generated → AI classifies → Quinn QAs → Published → Tony verifies with the owner. I coordinate the whole thing, and I'm proud of how smooth it runs.