The Zerops Challenge
Rules
Everything you're held to
Read these before you start building. Registering for The Zerops Challenge means agreeing to all of them, along with the WeMakeDevs Code of Conduct.
The challenge is solo only. You take part on your own, and you build and submit your project by yourself.
Your final project must be deployed and running on Zerops. Zerops must be meaningfully used in how the application is built, deployed, or operated.
The deployment must be correct and reachable. Judges have to be able to open the live project themselves, and it must stay up until judging is complete: a project we cannot access does not qualify, whatever the code looks like. The resources page has the quickstarts if you want a walkthrough of a real deployment.
The theme is open-ended, but every submitted project must use Zerops. You may build an application, developer tool, platform, game, automation, AI product, or any other useful project, in any category you like: what is fixed is the platform, not the subject. The project ideas on the overview page are inspiration only.
A Hello World does not qualify. The project needs a reasonably complex architecture, ideally at least three services: a frontend, a backend, and a database is the shape to aim for.
All participants must register through the event page before submitting a project.
You can get a head start if you want one. Plan the idea, sketch the architecture, set up your Zerops project, or begin building before the event opens: none of it is held against you. What you cannot do is enter a project that was already finished before the challenge began.
You may use templates, frameworks, open-source libraries, public APIs, third-party tools, and publicly available assets. What gets judged is the original work you built during the event.
Every submission must include a working Zerops deployment, a live project URL, access to your source code, a demo video, and a clear explanation of how Zerops is used.
The code must be available for us to review. It does not have to be fully open source, but it has to be a public repository until a week after the hackathon ends.
The social media post alone does not count as a submission. You must also complete the official submission form on the event page before the deadline.
AI tools such as ChatGPT, Claude, Cursor, Copilot, or similar may be used for assistance, but their use must be disclosed in the submission form.
Projects generated entirely by AI, without meaningful original work, technical understanding, or contribution from the participant, will be rejected.
You must understand the code you submit, and be able to explain the project architecture, the Zerops deployment, and your technical decisions to the judges.
A participant may submit only one project. Duplicate, copied, incomplete, or previously finished projects will be disqualified.
Any intellectual property developed during the event belongs to the participant who created it.
Treat participants, organisers, speakers, and community members with respect. Harassment, discrimination, spam, plagiarism, or attempts to manipulate the judging process will result in immediate disqualification.
Failure to follow these rules or the WeMakeDevs Code of Conduct may result in disqualification. Final eligibility and judging decisions remain with WeMakeDevs and Zerops.