It's "lede" if you're showing off or writing for a publication, where they deliberately search for "lede" and "hed" and "tk", which exist specifically to stick out from ordinary text.
I love how fickle HN is. This is the etymological equivalent of saying "it's expresso, not espresso" (espresso -> expresso, lead -> lede both happened in the 50s) and yet claiming that would be highly controversial.
