August 12, 2026
API or RIP?
Show HN: Ballet – Workflow automation that writes integrations against any API
This new app says it can connect anything — commenters say “sure, good luck with that”
TLDR: Ballet says it can build custom links between business apps from a plain-English request, helping teams avoid waiting on busy engineers. Commenters weren’t sold: many said the market is already crowded, and others warned real company software is so messy that the promise sounds wildly optimistic.
A fresh Show HN launch tried to sell a dream: tell Ballet what result you want in plain English, and it will build the behind-the-scenes links between your business tools, keep them running, and even turn them into code your engineers can check. The pitch is basically, “Stop waiting on your overloaded tech team — just describe the outcome and let the software do the messy connecting for you.” It’s aimed at teams juggling sales, support, billing, and customer data, especially when growth plans are stuck behind a long engineering to-do list.
But the comments? Instant side-eye. One camp basically rolled its eyes and said, here we go again: another automation tool, another promise to save the day, another startup adding “1% of extra value” in a market already bursting with lookalikes. The bluntest vibe was, why does every shiny idea need to become a product? Another commenter went even harder, saying Ballet’s neat 30-minute setup claim sounds adorable until it meets the real world — where old business software breaks constantly, changes without warning, and generally behaves like a raccoon in a server room.
And then came the driest joke of all: just listing rivals like Zapier and n8n, followed by “tonnes of these keep popping up.” Ouch. That simple comment landed like a meme-worthy shrug: the internet’s version of we’ve seen this movie before. So yes, Ballet launched with a polished promise — but the real show was the crowd asking whether this is the future of work, or just Automation App #847 with better branding.
Key Points
- •Ballet is introduced as a workflow-automation platform from the team behind Brainfish.
- •The product is positioned to let users describe business outcomes in plain English and have Ballet build, run, and maintain the resulting workflow.
- •The article highlights use cases in lead routing, product telemetry-based sales actions, and propagating pricing or SKU changes through billing systems.
- •Ballet claims it can generate integrations against any API, especially for proprietary stacks or complex multi-system workflows where connector libraries are insufficient.
- •The platform is described as producing inspectable, version-controlled code that is deterministic for critical steps and agentic only where flexibility is useful.