Keyword waves
When a new term breaks out on Product Hunt, you can usually trace it back to a single open primitive. Here are the three biggest breakouts of the last 24 months.
Six keywords tracked over 24 months
MCP (Model Context Protocol)
From zero to 78 launches in 13 months — the cleanest new-category breakout in the dataset.
Trigger: November 2024 — Anthropic shipped MCP as an open protocol for LLM tool use.
First 5 appearances in PH top-10
Vibe coding
A term that didn't exist in PH top-10 until February 2025. Product Hunt didn't observe this wave — it named it.
Trigger: Karpathy coined 'vibe coding' on Twitter in Feb 2025. A week later it showed up in a PH tagline.
First 5 appearances in PH top-10
Agents
Already a term in 2024, but exploded post-ChatGPT Operator launch.
Trigger: January 2025 — ChatGPT Operator, Anthropic's Computer Use, Replit Agent all landed in a 3-month window.
First 5 appearances in PH top-10