Showboat
Hacker ApprovedShares rank 35 of 86 privilege escalation tools by recommenders
Free tool that lets AI agents and people produce readable code walkthroughs and demos. Critics say its use case is unclear and it mostly makes static output.
Free tool that lets AI agents and people produce readable code walkthroughs and demos. Critics say its use case is unclear and it mostly makes static output.
12 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 10
- criticize it
- 2
- approval share
- 83%
Recommended in 4 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 10 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 4 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Useful for agents and humans
“I've had good experience using Simon Willison's showboat to make the model deeply inspect the code”
Comment from 30 Apr 2026 in “Ask HN: How are you using AI code assistants on large messy legacy code bases?” “Showboat seems like it could actually be quite useful for humans too”
Comment from 10 Feb 2026 in “Show HN: Showboat and Rodney, so agents can demo what they've built” Explains code changes via walkthroughs
“You might want to look at Simon Willison's showboat [0] tool, which generates walkthroughs of code to explain changes.”
Comment from 25 Sep 2026 in “Show HN: Whiteboard (YC W26) – An open-source IDE for thoughtful software design” “Otherwise it's just writing a document, not building a demo you can review.”
Comment from 10 Feb 2026 in “Show HN: Showboat and Rodney, so agents can demo what they've built” Solid design and reliable results
“The value is in coming up with a consistent design and good enough --help”
Comment from 10 Feb 2026 in “Show HN: Showboat and Rodney, so agents can demo what they've built” “It's less than a week old but it's so far been working really well”
Comment from 13 Feb 2026 in “I asked Claude Code to remove jQuery. It failed miserably” Admired by fellow developers
“Showboat is definitely the more significant of the two projects.”
Comment from 10 Feb 2026 in “Show HN: Showboat and Rodney, so agents can demo what they've built” “I like simonw's new showboat a lot for this”
Comment from 12 Feb 2026 in “GLM5 Released on Z.ai Platform”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Use case unclear to some
“Showboat does look neat -- though I feel like I don't fully grasp the use case yet!”
Comment from 11 Feb 2026 in “Show HN: Showboat and Rodney, so agents can demo what they've built” “Really cool tools, but I think one thing that would help in the introduction”
Comment from 10 Feb 2026 in “Show HN: Showboat and Rodney, so agents can demo what they've built” Mostly static screenshots, not demos
“Simon's tools are really great. Showboat is more for static screenshots though.”
Comment from 25 Mar 2026 in “Show HN: ProofShot – Give AI coding agents eyes to verify the UI they build” “Otherwise it's just writing a document, not building a demo you can review.”
Comment from 10 Feb 2026 in “Show HN: Showboat and Rodney, so agents can demo what they've built” An LLM could write the file directly
“Wait, why should an LLM simply not just write directly to the markdown file”
Comment from 10 Feb 2026 in “Show HN: Showboat and Rodney, so agents can demo what they've built” “Or alternatively, just be a skill versus a tool.”
Comment from 10 Feb 2026 in “Show HN: Showboat and Rodney, so agents can demo what they've built”
Other privilege escalation tools people recommend
The four most recommended other privilege escalation tools, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
See all 86 privilege escalation tools, rankedWhat people said
15 of the 16 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“You might want to look at Simon Willison's showboat [0] tool, which generates walkthroughs of code to explain changes.”
“I've had good experience using Simon Willison's showboat to make the model deeply inspect the code”
“Simon's tools are really great. Showboat is more for static screenshots though.”
“other CLIs I use often in conjunction with agents”
“It's less than a week old but it's so far been working really well”
“I like simonw's new showboat a lot for this”
“Showboat just might be a key tool in bridging the gap.”
“Showboat does look neat -- though I feel like I don't fully grasp the use case yet!”
“Showboat seems like it could actually be quite useful for humans too”
“Otherwise it's just writing a document, not building a demo you can review.”
“Wait, why should an LLM simply not just write directly to the markdown file”
“Showboat is definitely the more significant of the two projects.”
“Really cool tools, but I think one thing that would help in the introduction”
“The value is in coming up with a consistent design and good enough --help”
“Or alternatively, just be a skill versus a tool.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.