All Things Agentic Hackathon

Teams & Eligibility

How many teammates can I have?

You can enter as an individual, a team, or on behalf of an organization. The rules don't set a maximum team size — but every team member must be added to the project on Devpost, and one person must be named the Representative who submits on the team's behalf and receives the prize (they decide how to split it). Everyone on a team must be an eligible individual.

Who's eligible to enter?

You must be above the age of majority where you live as of August 3, 2026, and have internet access. The rules say residents of Italy, Quebec, Crimea, Cuba, Iran, Syria, North Korea, Sudan, Belarus, Russia, and any country under U.S. sanctions are not eligible, and neither are employees (and their households) of Google, Devpost, and organizations involved in running the contest. For anything eligibility-related, check the rules before you build.

I'm a startup — is there anything extra for me?

Yes! Startups can compete for the Startup Excellence prize on top of a core track. To be considered, select the Startup Excellence Prize when you submit. The rules say you must be submitting on behalf of an organization that is incorporated, and you must provide a corporate email address which you will also enter on the Submission Form.

Your project & tracks

Can I submit an existing project?
No. The rules say projects must be newly created during the Submission Period. You can use standard development tools — frameworks, libraries, starter templates, and AI coding assistants — but you must disclose any other pre-existing code or work you incorporate.

Which track should I build for — can I pick more than one?
Pick ONE. When you submit, you select the single category that best represents your project, and your submission is associated with that category. The three tracks are Taskmaster, Collaborative Partner, and Fortified Enterprise Fleet. Choose the one that fits your project's core focus. The rules say the Sponsor and Administrator reserve the right to reassign a submission to another category if it fits better elsewhere.

Can I submit more than one project?
Yes. The rules say you may submit more than one submission, but each must be unique and substantially different from your others. Each project is eligible for a maximum of one prize.

What technology am I required to use?
Every project must use: 

1. Gemini 3.5 or newer (via the Gemini API or Vertex AI)
2. at least one Google agent framework (Google ADK, GenAI SDK, Antigravity SDK, or Genkit),
3. at least one Google Cloud infrastructure service (such as Cloud Run, Cloud SQL, Firestore, GKE, or Pub/Sub)

Google Cloud credits & the free trial

Where do I get credits, and how many?
Two options:

1. Sign up for a no-cost Google Cloud trial or 
2. Request $150 in Google Cloud credits for this hackathon using the credit form 

How do I request the $150 in credits?
Fill out the credit form. The rules say each Entrant may request one code, the request must be submitted by August 28 at 12:00 PM PT or until supplies run out, and it will be reviewed within 72 business hours. Provision of credits is not guaranteed and is at the discretion of the Sponsor and Administrator.

⭐ Pro tip for getting your credit request approved:
The form asks which track you're building for and a short description of your project. Name one of the three official tracks — Taskmaster, Collaborative Partner, or Fortified Enterprise Fleet — not a made-up one, and keep the description to 1–2 sentences. Requests that list a track that doesn't exist or that are too short are auto-declined.

Common issues redeeming credits:
Request early — reviews take up to 72 business hours, so don't wait until you're mid-build or near the August 28 deadline. Submit the form only once; you get one code per entrant. Apply the code to the correct Cloud Billing account. And remember the credit is capped: the rules say you're responsible for any and all fees beyond the $150, so watch your usage (see the cost-saving tips on the Resources tab).

What's the free trial, and is it different from the credits?
Yes, they're separate. The Google Cloud free trial gives new Google Cloud users starter credits to explore the platform at no cost. The $150 hackathon credits are an additional, hackathon-specific allotment you request via the form.

How do I keep my cloud costs down?
Use Gemini Flash first and reserve Gemini Pro for complex final reasoning; set minimum instances to zero so your app scales to zero and sleeps when idle; and turn services off after your demo — record your proof of a working deployment for the video, then switch off services and delete unused resources.

Which tools are free?
The agent frameworks — Google ADK, GenAI SDK, Antigravity SDK, and Genkit — are free to use. You can prototype against the Gemini API in Google AI Studio at no cost on the free tier, and the free GEAR program gives you monthly no-cost learning credits and hands-on labs to skill up. 

Are there any Google Cloud products the credits don't cover?
The credits cover the vast majority of Google Cloud's portfolio — Vertex AI, Cloud Run, Cloud SQL, Firestore, GKE, Pub/Sub, and more. They typically don't cover third-party Marketplace solutions billed through Google Cloud (like MongoDB Atlas or Datadog), domain registration through Cloud Domains, or certain high-cost GPU/TPU reservations. Stick to native Google Cloud services to stay within coverage.

What tech is required vs. recommended for the Fortified Enterprise Fleet track?
The three mandatory technologies above still apply. On top of them, this track recommends the Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform to build an enterprise-grade agent network: Agent Registry (publish, version, and discover agents), Agent Runtime (long-running background execution) and Memory Bank (persistent cross-session memory), Agent Identity (zero-trust access), Agent Gateway (routing and policy enforcement), Model Armor (guardrails against prompt injection, tool poisoning, and PII leaks), and Agent Observability (audit logs and reasoning-chain traces). These are recommended, not required — but they're what this track's judging is built around, and deploying on the Agent Platform earns bonus points.

Do I have to build for Fortified Enterprise Fleet to use those enterprise tools?
No. Any project can use the Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform. But Fortified Enterprise Fleet is where that architecture is the whole point — agent discovery, multi-agent orchestration, long-term state, observability, and security — so it's the natural home if that's your focus.

What's the difference between GEAR and the Enterprise Agent Platform?
They're two different things with similar-sounding names. GEAR is the free learning program (start with "Introduction to Agents" and the hands-on labs) to help you skill up. The Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform is the set of enterprise agent products recommended for the Fortified Enterprise Fleet track.

Getting help & teaming up

How do I find teammates?
Join the Devpost Discord to meet other builders and team up — great ideas often start from a simple conversation. You can also use the Participants tab on the hackathon site to find people to build with.

Where do I ask questions?
The Discussion Board is good for questions and gets them in front of the Devpost team. That said, peers on the Devpost Discord often answer faster, so Discord is your quickest route for build questions. You can also attend or watch the webinars which are posted at the top of the Resources tab. 

I'm new to agents — where do I start?
Join the free GEAR program and start with the "Introduction to Agents" path, then skim the ADK quickstart and the hackathon Resources page. Everything you need to go from idea to working demo is linked there.

Submitting

Does my project have to be live or deployed during judging?

It doesn't have to be publicly live — the rules say your application doesn't need to be publicly accessible or deployed at the exact moment of submission or judging, so you can switch services off to avoid running up costs. But proof of Google Cloud is not optional. The rules say your demo video must demonstrate that the backend is running on Google Cloud, and that you must provide strict proof in your submission that the solution was built and deployed there. Acceptable proof includes a screen recording of the Google Cloud Console (such as the Cloud Run dashboard or Vertex AI logs) or the live .run URL shown in your browser's address bar during the demo. Capture that proof in the video before you turn anything off, and back it up in your code repository.

Can my code repo be private?
Yes, but if it's private you must give access to testing@devpost.com and cloudhackathons@google.com so the judges can review it. Include step-by-step spin-up instructions in your README either way.

How long can my demo video be, and where does it go?
Four minutes maximum — only the first four minutes are evaluated. It must be uploaded and publicly visible on YouTube or Vimeo, and it must be in English or include English subtitles.

Can I edit my submission after the deadline?

Before the deadline, you can save drafts and update your submission as many times as you’d like. After the Submission Period ends, you cannot make any edits at all. Leave your demo video, code repository, and any live site or app, etc exactly as they were at submission until winners are announced. Editing any of it during the judging window can put your prize eligibility at risk. If you can't wait to keep building, fork your code repository (make a separate copy under your own account) and work on that copy.

Do the optional extras matter?
They can help! Yes — the rules list optional contributions that earn bonus points on top of your judged score. There are three:

• Publish a piece of content (blog, podcast, or video) covering how you built your project, on any public platform (Medium, dev.to, YouTube, etc.). It must be public — not unlisted — and you must include language stating you created it for the purposes of entering this hackathon.
• Publish a social media post highlighting or promoting your project on X, LinkedIn, Instagram, or Facebook. On X or LinkedIn, include the hashtag #AllThingsAgentic Hackathon.
• Successfully integrate Google AI models such as Gemma, Veo, or Lyria.

Check the official rules for exactly how much each one is worth.

Using AI to help you Build

AI assistants are welcome — judges care about the final project and the problem it solves, not how you typed the code. Lean on AI where it makes your project stronger, and skip it where it makes you blend in.

Do use AI to:

• Narrate your demo video. A voiceover — your own voice or an AI text-to-speech tool — walking judges through what your agent does and how you built it beats a silent screencast with background music. Just make sure the narration is accurate.

• Scaffold, debug, and iterate faster. Use AI coding assistants to generate boilerplate, wire up SDK calls, and troubleshoot, so your time goes into the agent's actual behavior.

• Draft and tighten your write-up, README, and architecture-diagram labels.

• Brainstorm edge cases and test scenarios for your agent to handle.

Don't use AI to:

• Name your project. AI-generated names all sound the same ("AgentFlow," "TaskPilot," "NexusAI") and blur together across hundreds of submissions — pick a name with a human touch that says what your agent actually does.

• Narrate or describe your project in vague, generic terms. "We used AI to build the backend" is far weaker than "we used it to scaffold the data pipeline and iterate on the Firestore integration." Be specific about what your agent does and how the tech was used.

• Fake or overstate what's running. Show the real thing working live, with real proof it's deployed on Google Cloud.

• Wrap a generic chatbot in a nice UI and call it an agent. Judges are looking for autonomous, real actions — solve a specific, real problem and show the agent doing the work, not just talking.