Advertiser policy
Acceptable ads, written down.
We show ads to developers inside their own workflow, which is an unusually trusted place to put an ad. So the bar is unusually high. This page is the whole bar. It is also what the open-source scanner checks every link against, so the rules and the enforcement are one thing you can read.
Who can advertise
Trust here is earned and revocable, not a one-time gate.
Curated founding sponsors only
Every advertiser is a reputable developer-tool company we hand-picked and reviewed personally. No self-serve, no exceptions. This is the moment of maximum scrutiny.
KYC-lite self-serve
New advertisers are admitted through lightweight verification: a real business identity or an established domain, plus a verified payment method. New accounts start with lower spend caps and tighter review.
Human creative review
Every creative and every landing page is reviewed by a person before it can serve, at every tier, forever. Automated scanning is a floor, not a substitute.
What we will never run
Banned outright. No spend level, no track record, and no exception unlocks them.
Malware, spyware, or potentially-unwanted programs
The audience is developers running code on their machines. A hostile download here is the worst thing we could deliver.
Phishing or credential harvesting
Any page designed to trick someone into handing over logins, keys, or tokens is the exact attack this product is built to be the opposite of.
Adult content
It does not belong in a work tool that surfaces itself mid-task on someone's screen.
Gambling and real-money betting
We will not push high-loss, addiction-adjacent products at people who are trying to focus.
Crypto get-rich schemes and token pumps
Speculative-return bait preys on the wrong impulse and is a magnet for scams. Legitimate infrastructure that happens to be crypto-adjacent is judged on its merits.
Deceptive fake system alert creatives
Ads dressed up as an OS warning, a virus notice, or software chrome are dishonest by construction.
Anything that breaks the agent vendors' own rules
We stay a good-faith neighbor and will not run creative that would breach a vendor's content or deception policies.
Creative standards
Clearly labeled Sponsored
Non-negotiable, on every impression.
No animation abuse
No flashing, blinking, or rapid motion. One tasteful line, matching the app's restraint.
The landing page matches the creative
What the ad promises is what the page delivers. No bait-and-switch, no cloaking, no swapping the destination after approval.
One format
The labeled sponsor line. No expanding units, no interstitials, no takeovers.
How we enforce it
Every link is scanned before it can serve
We run an open-source safety scanner on each ad destination. It resolves the full redirect chain, requires valid HTTPS, checks every hop against reputation feeds, flags newly-registered domains, and blocks known malware and typosquat patterns.
Continuous re-scanning
Approval is not a permanent pass. We re-scan on a schedule and whenever a redirect chain changes, so a clean link cannot quietly become hostile later.
Post-approval swaps mean a permanent ban
Swapping a reviewed creative or landing page after approval is the one unforgivable move. It ends the account, no warning, no reinstatement.
Appeals
If your ad or account is rejected and you believe it was a mistake, you can appeal to a person, who will explain the specific rule and reconsider. Post-approval-swap bans are the exception and are not appealable.
Want a founding slot? Every founding partner is reviewed against this policy by a person.
Request a founding slot