dev · indie · marketing
DEV Community: requirements, how to submit, and what you actually get
A four-million-developer publishing community where the submission is a post you write, and the link in it is followed from a brand-new account.
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Eligibility
Who DEV Community accepts
You need
Something to say at article length, because there is no form to fill and no product field to paste into
One of the six sign-in providers or an email and password
A product a developer audience has a reason to care about
You'll be rejected if
A press release with a link at the bottom, which the feed buries and the community downvotes
Nothing to write: an empty profile with a link in the bio is not a launch
Developer toolsSide projectsOpen source projectsArticles
What you actually get
A post under your own handle on a DR 91 domain, live the moment you press publish, with a followed link to your site in the body: the anchor on a post published from a day-old account carries rel="noopener noreferrer" and no nofollow. What it does not give you is a directory row, so the traffic comes from the post being worth reading.
How to submit to DEV Community
1
Sign in
Apple, Facebook, GitHub, Google, MLH or Twitter, or an email and password. Google takes about a minute end to end.
2
Get through onboarding
Five screens: profile, tags to follow, suggested follows, special initiatives, newsletter. Read them rather than clicking Continue, because most of it arrives pre-ticked.
3
Write the post
The editor is plain markdown with a title, up to four tags, an optional cover image, and Advanced Options for a canonical URL if you are cross-posting from your own blog.
4
Tag it for the audience you want
#showdev is the one for "I built this". Add the two or three topic tags that describe what the post is actually about rather than what you are selling.
5
Publish and stay in the comments
It is live immediately, with no review queue. The comments are where the post either turns into readers or stops.
DEV Community requirements
A post: title, markdown body, up to four tags
An account through one of the six providers, or an email and password
A cover imageoptional
A canonical URL, if the post exists on your own blog toooptional
Gotchas
There is no submission form. What you are submitting is an article, and the whole return depends on it being worth reading on its own, so budget an afternoon of writing rather than ten minutes of pasting.
The link in the body is followed. The anchor to an author's own site on a post published from a day-old account with no followers carries rel="noopener noreferrer" and nothing else, which is unusual at this domain rating.
Four tags is the hard limit, and they decide who sees it. #showdev is the launch tag; spending all four on your own product's vocabulary puts the post in front of nobody.
Onboarding arrives pre-ticked: it follows twenty people and five organisations on your behalf, then three more "special initiative" accounts, before you have seen a single post.
Let your agent submit to DEV Community
Connect SubmitMap to your AI over MCP and this page stops being something you read and copy. Your agent asks for the DEV Community playbook and gets the brief for this exact form, with the values already taken from your submission pack instead of placeholders you fill in by hand.
What it does for this platform
Checks your product against the 5 DEV Community rules above, so you find out you would be rejected before you open a tab.
Hands your agent all 4 fields this form asks for, 2 of them optional, already filled from your pack.
Types it into DEV Community in your own browser, and stops for you when the form wants a sign-in.
Records what it sent, so the dashboard can answer "did I ever submit to DEV Community?".
Connect your agentTools and endpointsWorks with Claude Code, Claude, Codex, Cursor, VS Code and Hermes.
DEV Community FAQ
How long does DEV Community approval take?
DEV Community's typical time from submission to going live is instant.
How much does it cost to submit to DEV Community?
Submitting to DEV Community is free.
Does DEV Community give a dofollow backlink?
Yes, a listing on DEV Community carries a dofollow link. The site has a domain rating of 91.
Does DEV Community require a backlink to your site?
No, DEV Community does not require a link back from your site.
What gets you rejected from DEV Community?
A press release with a link at the bottom, which the feed buries and the community downvotes; Nothing to write: an empty profile with a link in the bio is not a launch.