July 2025 Hackathon

Hackathon date: July 17 - 24
Meetup link: https://www.meetup.com/gitlab-virtual-meetups/events/307549909/

Prior to the Hackathon

After hackathon week, decide on next hackathon date within 7 days. Once date is decided, perform boilerplate actions and requests from others.

Boiler plate actions

  1. Create the Meetup.com event: https://www.meetup.com/gitlab-virtual-meetups/events/307549909/
  2. Open an issue for tracking community contributions during the Hackathon: #871 (closed)
  3. Add the event in the Developer Advocacy (public) calendar: https://calendar.google.com/calendar/u/0/r/eventedit/NG1ma242ZzJvMW52ZjR0NzVwN2NwcmNnZTUgY183OTMwZmNiMGM5ZTQ3ODNiZGQzZDIzODU4YWU5YWY0MzA2ZjI4ZDk3NmE0MGM4MzNmNTA3MTBjN2NiODZiYTgyQGc
  4. Update the Hackathon page(s) with all the necessary information: gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com!136845 (merged)
    1. Confirm countdown correct, meetup link correct, and qualifying merge requests links to the correct issue
  5. Create an event in Discord: https://discord.gg/gitlab?event=1286335284161679382
  6. Update the Hackathon event date on the GitLab events page https://app.contentful.com/spaces/xz1dnu24egyd/entries/6UnKsDbVqNdkNS6dxpK9qY
    1. Check the event is listed/published - in progress

Requests from others

  1. Contact @janasenap to arrange e-mail outreach to all community program members
  2. Submit asana form. Link in email.
    1. Check in whether the issue has been actioned
  3. Request video creation from #developer-relations
  4. Are any product groups participating?

After previous hackathon merge period is over

  1. Make an announcement on following channels:
    1. Forum. Consider making the topic a banner on the forum for the period leading into the event. https://forum.gitlab.com/t/our-next-hackathon-starts-april-10th/122219
    2. Discord https://discord.com/channels/778180511088640070/778198020709679106/1374810480731881522
    3. Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/gitlab/comments/1ks4sh0/our_next_hackathon_starts_july_17th/
    4. Slack
      1. #whats-happening-at-gitlab
      2. #tw-team
      3. #developer-relations
      4. #engineering-fyi
      5. #mr-coaching
      6. #product
  2. Move the previous Hackathon content to the Past Events page
  3. Open an issue for including the Hackathon in the upcoming monthly newsletter: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/internal-communications/newsletter/-/issues/88
  4. Add new dates to contributors platform contributors-gitlab-com!967 (merged)
  5. Update triage-ops / the @gitLab-bot to auto-add the Hackathon label to any community MRs during the Hackathon period: gitlab-org/quality/triage-ops!3412 (merged)
  6. Update the GitLab Public Calendar with event details https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/tools-and-tips/#gitlab-team-meetings-calendar

Hackathon minus 2-3 weeks - start 6/26/25

  1. Follow up with social and newsletter
  2. Post reminders on:
    1. Forum
    2. Discord
    3. Reddit
    4. Slack
      1. #whats-happening-at-gitlab
      2. #tw-team
      3. #developer-relations
      4. #engineering-fyi
      5. #mr-coaching
      6. #product

Hackathon minus 1 week

  1. Post reminders on:
    1. Forum
    2. Discord
    3. Reddit
    4. Slack
      1. #whats-happening-at-gitlab
      2. #tw-team
      3. #developer-relations
      4. #engineering-fyi
      5. #mr-coaching
      6. #product
  2. Check hackathon kickoff video will be done on time and schedule social post
  3. Add hackathon new dates to contributors platform

During the Hackathon

  1. Announce the event kickoff:
    1. Forum
    2. Discord
    3. Reddit
    4. Slack
      1. #whats-happening-at-gitlab
      2. #tw-team
      3. #developer-relations
      4. #engineering-fyi
      5. #mr-coaching
      6. #product
  2. Upload kick off video to YouTube
  3. Update link to kickoff video on hackathon page
  4. Ensure that the MR counter on the landing page is working, once the first MR has been submitted.
  5. Throughout the event, monitor Discord and other channels for questions/discussions. If necessary escalate any questions to other GitLab team members (e.g. #mr-coaching on Slack).
  6. At the end of the event, post an event wrap-up tweet and thank the community.

After the Hackathon

  1. Post an event wrap-up on Forum/Reddit channels.
  2. Post an event wrap-up on Discord.
  3. Post a thank you message on #thanks Slack channel.
  4. Post a thank you message reminding of the cut-off date on the tracking issue (and CC all participants using the copy usernames button from the merge request leaderboard).
  5. Post a follow-up message a few weeks later (and CC all participants with un-merged MRs).
  6. Update the dates and countdown clock on the GitLab Hackathon page. The new hackathon dates should be set in the code.
    NOTE: Try to avoid December as team members are busy trying to wrap up before the holiday period.
  7. Update the hackathon dates in contributors.gitlab.com
  8. Update the GitLab Hackathon page with links to prize winners and the wrap-up blog post.
  9. Issue rewards via contributor platform
  10. Award GitLab achievements: https://gitlab.com/-/graphql-explorer
  11. Get email campaign stats from @janasenap
Relevant GraphQL queries List achievements 
query {
  group(fullPath: "gitlab-org/achievements") {
    achievements {
      nodes {
        name
        id
        namespace {
          id
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Award user achievements:

mutation m {
  achievementsAward(input: {
    userId: "gid://gitlab/User/XXX"
    achievementId: "gid://gitlab/Achievements::Achievement/54"
  }) {
    errors
  }
}

Confirm user achievements:

query
{
  user(username: "gitlab username, no @") {
    id
    username
    userAchievements {
      edges {
        node {
          achievement {
            id
            name
          }
          id
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

/cc @gitlab-org/developer-relations/contributor-success

Edited by Arianna Haradon