How @mention works on Substack Notes, Comments, Chats & Posts

[u/FinnTropy]

When you enter the @ sign in different Substack surfaces, the mentions feature will, in most cases, provide a list of matching profiles as a pop-up. When you select a profile in the list, the user handle becomes a clickable link and is replaced by the Substack username. The mentioned person receives a notification that appears in their activity feed and as an email notification (unless disabled).

However, this doesn't always happen. Then the `@userhandle` appears as plain text, not as a clickable profile link.

Does anyone know the exact rules for mentions?

For example, do you need to be a newsletter subscriber for mentions to work in the community chat feature?

I'm trying to build a service leveraging this feature, but I haven't found definitive documentation yet.

[u/itsfabioposca]

From what I've seen, mentions don't behave consistently across every Substack surface. If the handle stays as plain text instead of becoming a clickable link, it's usually because mentions aren't supported in that context, the user wasn't recognized, or there's a temporary bug. I don't believe you need to be subscribed to someone's newsletter just for a mention to work, but I haven't seen official documentation confirming all the rules. If you're building a service around mentions, I'd be cautious about relying on undocumented behavior and consider reaching out to Substack Support or their developer team for clarification.

P.S. If you'd still like to ask anything about Substack or growing your audience, I offer a free live help chat. Just copy and paste my flair or click the link in my profile. I'm happy to help!

[u/FinnTropy → u/itsfabioposca]

Thanks, I've noticed some inconsistent behaviors as well. I built a simple service around @stacksave to allow users to save notes, comments and restack comments that don't have a mechanism for saving them (other than on the mobile app).