October 2025 Hackathon

Hackathon dates: October 1 - 7
Meetup link: https://www.meetup.com/gitlab-virtual-meetups/events/310503036

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. Update the hackathon dates in contributors.gitlab.com
2. Create the Meetup.com event: https://www.meetup.com/gitlab-virtual-meetups/events/310503036
3. Open an issue for tracking community contributions during the Hackathon:
4. Add the event in the Developer Advocacy (public) calendar: https://calendar.google.com/calendar/u/0/r/eventedit/NG1ma242ZzJvMW52ZjR0NzVwN2NwcmNnZTUgY183OTMwZmNiMGM5ZTQ3ODNiZGQzZDIzODU4YWU5YWY0MzA2ZjI4ZDk3NmE0MGM4MzNmNTA3MTBjN2NiODZiYTgyQGc
5. Update the Hackathon page(s) with all the necessary information: gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com!136845 (merged)
   1. Confirm countdown and meetup link are correct
6. Create an event in Discord: https://discord.gg/gitlab?event=1286335284161679382
7. Move the previous Hackathon content to the Past Events page
8. 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

Requests from others

1. Request video creation from #developer-relations
2. Post on #social_media_action in slack to coordinate social posts.
   1. Check in whether the issue has been actioned
3. 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
   3. Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/gitlab/comments/1j44a25/the_next_gitlab_hackathon_starts_on_april_10th/
   4. Slack - ask teams to share important issues
      1. #whats-happening-at-gitlab
      2. #tw-team
      3. #developer-relations
      4. #engineering-fyi
      5. #mr-coaching
      6. #product
2. Open an issue for including the Hackathon in the upcoming monthly newsletter: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/internal-communications/newsletter/-/issues/83
3. Update triage-ops / the @gitLab-bot to auto-add the Hackathon label to any community MRs during the Hackathon period: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/quality/triage-ops/-/merge_requests/3229
4. 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

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

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

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. Confirm DevRel/Social video is posted on LinkedIn
3. Ensure that the MR countdown on the hackathon page is working
4. 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).
5. Periodically add reminders in Discord about merge date cutoff.

Hackathon wrap-up

1. Post an event wrap-up on Forum/Reddit channels.

2. Post an event wrap-up on Discord.

3. Submit results to while you were iterating

4. Post an event wrap-up in #thanks

5. Update the dates and countdown clock on the GitLab Hackathon page.

6. Update the Past Events page

7. Issue rewards via contributor platform

8. Award GitLab achievements: https://gitlab.com/-/graphql-explorer

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