Construct a meaningful title

The title of your question is the very first thing people will see, and some will make a judgment about whether or not to look into it more based on those words alone. A good title can draw people into your question, especially if it sounds like a challenge or contains something familiar. A bad title can cause people to skip it, downvote it, or vote to close it. The following are some tips for how to construct a good title that can get people interested in your problem.

Clearly indicate what the problem is

Your title should be specific about the problem at hand, not the task you’re trying to perform. There could be any number of ways to complete a task, but your question needs to be about your particular problem with that task.

Use error messages

If you did a good job reading a stack trace and found the root error message, that can be part of your title (if it’s short enough). Don’t put only that message: be sure to also indicate what your code was doing to cause that error.

Don’t say “I need help with X”

It’s already assumed that you need help with something just from the fact that you are asking a question in the first place, so stating that in the title isn’t helpful. The title should instead indicate what the specific problem is while working with X.

Bad title: I am having trouble with a SQL query

This is a bad title because pretty much every question asking for SQL help could be stated like this, and the reader would have no way of telling them apart when presented with a list of SQL questions. The title should indicate the nature of the problem you need help with so that the reader knows what they’re about to get into.

Good title: How to join between two tables with columns of different types with Postgres?

Don’t ask “How do I do X?”

This can come across as asking for a tutorial or documentation on some task, which is not allowed on Stack Overflow. If your question is about understanding some procedure, your title should be as specific as possible about where you are stuck with your implementation and provide some context on how you are going about it.

Bad title: How to read a document from Firestore?

This title is too general, since reading a document in Firestore (a NoSQL database) is a fundamental part of working with the database, and already very well documented. The title could be improved by stating what specifically is the problem with this common task.

Good title: How to read a document in Firestore in a Kotlin coroutine (no API to await the result)?

This title is better because it indicates a much more specific need. The reader of this title will have a better sense of what the issue is, and this question will perform better in web searches for people with a similar problem.

Don’t say “X doesn’t work”

It’s already understood that most questions about code on Stack Overflow are going to indicate that the code doesn’t work. Be specific about what isn’t working the way you expect.

Bad title: React hook doesn’t work

Good title: React hook doesn’t get invoked when when my redux store is updated

Don't just repeat your tags in the title

Tags are useful for categorizing questions based on language and technology, but they are not good for indicating what the problem is. The title of your question should do that.

Bad title: Flutter Riverpod Firestore

Good title: State changes from Firestore not showing up in Flutter app using Riverpod