📦 Submission Requirements

All times are Pakistan Standard Time (PKT).

1. Pitch, by 16th October (Friday)

1. Every team member registers for this hackathon on Devpost.

2. Create a public GitHub repository for your project, and add a SPEC.md at its root. Use the template in Resources and fill in every heading. Until the kickoff, the repository may contain documentation only (see Rules).

3. Your team lead submits the pitch form at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScL6jgw7VsU_O2fFSYZaxXsn6_sESQWfVRF1Ny-d_30fWdqEQ/viewform?usp=sharing&ouid=118036297912944067453 with your team name, each member's details and Devpost username, and your repository URL. One form per team.

We judge your SPEC.md at your last commit before the deadline. You can keep refining it afterwards: it becomes the starting point for your build. You don't need a Devpost project yet.

The top 15 teams are selected on:

• Problem and impact (30%): a real problem, a clearly identified user, and a credible reason it matters.
• Scope and buildability (30%): an MVP scope tight enough to build and deploy between 19 and 22 October.
• Specification quality (25%): a concrete user journey, AI feature, feature list, data model and technical approach.
• Team readiness (15%): skills, roles, and a sensible plan for reusing open-source and Devmarketplace components.

2. Kickoff checkpoint, before 1:00 PM on Monday 19 October

• Your team lead creates your project on Devpost and invites every teammate.
• You show an organiser a working app in progress in your Devmarketplace workspace.
• You hand in any PRIOR_WORK.md declaration or exemption request (see Rules).

3. Final submission on Devpost, by 11:00 PM on Thursday 22 October

Late submissions are not accepted. Judges test your deployed app themselves and review your code, so include:

• Project name and tagline.
• Description: the problem, who it is for, how AI is used in the core journey, and your tech stack.
• Live deployed URL that judges can open, sign up on and use, online until winners are announced.
• Demo video, 3 minutes maximum (YouTube, Vimeo or Loom, public or unlisted), showing the full core journey, 2FA, and your data surviving a restart.
• Public repository link: the same repository you pitched with.
• Links to at least two code gigs your team published on Devmarketplace.
• Every team member added to the submission.

Mandatory requirements (pass/fail)

A judge checks these before scoring begins. Miss one and your project is not scored, no matter how good the idea is.

M1: AI must be core to the product

Your product must make live calls to a hosted AI model (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, or any provider you prefer) as part of its main user journey. These do not count:

• Using AI only to help you write the code.
• A chatbot bolted onto an app that otherwise has nothing to do with AI.
• A single hardcoded prompt with no product logic around it: no context, no data, no handling of what comes back.

How it is checked: a judge triggers the AI feature on your deployed app and finds the API call in your repository.

M2: Real, persistent data

Store user-generated data in a real database that survives a restart: PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, SQLite, or a hosted service such as Supabase, Firebase, Neon or MongoDB Atlas. In-memory arrays, localStorage on its own and hardcoded JSON files do not count.

How it is checked: your demo video shows a restart with the data still there, and judges find their own data still there when they return to your app.

M3: Working authentication with 2FA

Users must be able to sign up, sign in and use two-factor authentication (2FA), and two different accounts must each see only their own data. Email and password, OAuth, magic links or a managed provider (Clerk, Auth0, Supabase Auth, Firebase Auth) are all fine.

How it is checked: a judge signs up two accounts and confirms neither can see the other's data. Your demo video shows 2FA being set up and used. This is the most common reason teams fail, so test it.

M4: One complete journey that works

A judge must be able to sign up → perform your core AI-powered action → have the result saved → sign back in later and still see it, on your deployed app, without it crashing. Half-finished features elsewhere are fine. This one path is not optional.

M5: Public repository and documentation

Your repository must be public at the time of judging and contain:

• README.md: what the project does, the stack, the live URL, and setup instructions a judge can follow.
• SPEC.md: your spec from the pitch round, updated as you build.
• AI_DISCLOSURE.md: the AI tools and models you used, and every reused or open-source component, with licences or links.
• PRIOR_WORK.md: only if you reuse anything pre-existing (see Rules).
• Commits spread across 19 to 22 October, not one large commit at the end.

M6: At least two published code gigs

Publish at least two code gigs on Devmarketplace as you build, not all at the end. Each must be code your team wrote during the event, lifted out of your project: an auth setup, an API wrapper, a component, a prompt or RAG utility, a schema, a hook. Give each a clear title, a short description and setup instructions another developer can follow, and credit your teammates as contributors. Gigs are reviewed as part of judging.

M2 and M3 can be exempted for projects that are not multi-user apps. See Rules, section 3.

Interface quality

Interface quality is scored, not gated (15% of judging). Your app and demo must still be free of broken layouts, placeholder text and unhandled error screens. Component libraries are encouraged.

✅ Before you submit

• ☐ The live URL works in a private browser window.
• ☐ Two test accounts see separate data, and 2FA works.
• ☐ The AI feature works on the deployed app, tested within the last hour.
• ☐ The repository is public, with README, SPEC and AI_DISCLOSURE.
• ☐ Demo video is uploaded, two gigs are linked, and every member is on the submission.

Devpost closes at 11:00 PM PKT sharp. Don't leave it to the last ten minutes.