Build an agent that does real work on AWS.
Two weeks. One track. Eight teams demo live on stage at AWS Community Day in front of 200+ builders. Up to $3,200 in AWS credits on the line.
- Build window: Tuesday, September 29 to Tuesday, October 13, 2026
- Finals: AWS Community Day, AI Edition, October 13, 2026, AWS Builder Loft, 525 Market St, Floor 2, San Francisco, CA 94105
- Register by: Monday, September 28
- Register: on the Luma event page. Fill in the registration questions; that is your team sign-up.
- Questions: Post in the Luma Event Chat (you are added automatically when you register) so everyone benefits from the answer, or use Contact the Host on the Luma page for anything private. No calls or office hours. Reply target is 24 hours.
What you'll build
Any agentic AI application on AWS. Think agents that plan, call tools, remember context, and complete a task a real person cares about. Projects for accessibility, healthcare, education, or public good are welcome and tend to score well on usefulness, but everyone competes in one pool.
Two weeks is enough for a working prototype, not a finished product. Judges know that. Scope accordingly.
Who can join
- Teams of 2 to 4 people.
- Flying solo? Register anyway and answer yes to "match me" in the Luma registration questions. The lead will connect you with other solo builders in the Event Chat before September 29.
- You must be registered for AWS Community Day. Finalists present in person.
- Organizers, judges, and their immediate work teammates can't win prizes.
- Not registered for Community Day yet? Register here, it is free.
Rules
- All hackathon work starts on or after September 29, when the start announcement goes out on Luma. Open-source libraries and frameworks are fine. Renaming an existing project is not.
- Use at least two AWS services, and at least one must be an AI service: Bedrock, Bedrock AgentCore, SageMaker, Strands Agents SDK, Amazon Q, Transcribe, Rekognition, and similar all count.
- Your code must be in a public GitHub repo. Private repos, invite-only links, and zip files will not be accepted. The repo must be public at the time you submit and stay public through October 13. License it MIT or Apache 2.0.
- No production customer data, PHI, or PII. Use synthetic or public datasets.
- You own your IP. We just want to see it.
- Be kind. The event code of conduct applies to every channel and the day itself.
Timeline
| Date | What happens |
|---|---|
| Now through Mon Sep 28 | Register your team. |
| Tue Sep 29 | Hackathon starts. Start announcement goes out on Luma (email blast and Event Chat) with the final rules, rubric, writeup template, submission form, and any AWS credit details. Build begins. |
| Sep 29 to Oct 11 | Build. Questions go in the Luma Event Chat. |
| Sun Oct 11, 11:59 PM PT | Submissions due. No extensions. |
| Mon Oct 12 by 6 PM PT | Finalists notified by email. |
| Tue Oct 13 | Community Day. Finalists check in at the hackathon room, dry-run on the main stage over lunch, demo live at 4:15 PM after the closing remarks. Winners announced right after the last demo. |
How to submit
By Sunday, October 11, 11:59 PM PT, submit via the submission form (link goes live September 29 with the start announcement):
- Public GitHub repo with a README covering what it does and how to run it. We will open the link while logged out; if it 404s, the submission doesn't count.
- 3-minute demo video (YouTube unlisted or Loom). This is your backup if the live demo fails, so make it good.
- One-page writeup using the template: the problem, who it helps, an architecture diagram, AWS services used, and what you'd build next.
- Team roster with each member's name and email. This is what we use to issue credits, so get it right.
Download the writeup template (Word) → Fill in every section, keep it to one page, and export it as a PDF for the submission form.
How you'll be judged
Every criterion is scored 1 to 5 by each judge.
Technical depth
30%
A 5 looks like: Real agentic behavior (planning, tool use, memory), sound AWS architecture, more than a prompt wrapper
Real-world usefulness
25%
A 5 looks like: Solves a problem a real user has, clear target user, plausible path to adoption
Responsible AI
20%
A 5 looks like: Guardrails, handles failure and hallucination, considers privacy and misuse, cites data sources
Demo and communication
15%
A 5 looks like: Works live, tells a clear story, honest about limitations
Completeness and polish
10%
A 5 looks like: Runs from the README, has tests or evals, clean repo
Round 1 (Oct 12): Judges score every submission from your video, repo, and writeup. The top 8 become finalists.
Round 2 (Oct 13): Finalists demo live. You get 5 minutes, hard stop, with a visible timer. Judges may ask a quick question or two in the 1-minute changeover. Final score is 40% Round 1 and 60% live demo.
Judges decide right after the eighth demo and the winners are announced on stage before the room empties, around 5:00 PM.
Prizes
- Winning team: $2,000 in AWS credits ($500 per member, up to 4 members)
- Runner-up team: $1,200 in AWS credits ($300 per member, up to 4 members)
All 8 finalists get their demo recorded and featured on the AWS Community Bay Area YouTube channel, plus a shout-out from the organizers on LinkedIn.
Credits are AWS promotional credits applied to your own AWS account, issued within about two weeks after the event. Make sure every team member has an AWS account in their own name. Promotional credits typically have an expiry date and some service restrictions; we'll share the exact terms when codes are issued.
Finalist day-of checklist (Oct 13)
- Arrive when doors open at 9:30 AM and check in at the hackathon room (the Track B room, yours until 2:00 PM).
- Do the mandatory dry run with a volunteer on the main stage during lunch, 1:00 to 2:00 PM. Every team, no exceptions.
- Bring your own laptop, charger, and any adapters. We'll have HDMI and USB-C at the stage.
- Have your backup video open in a tab.
- Practice the 5-minute version. Then practice the 4-minute version.
Tips from the organizers
- Pick the demo moment first, then build backward from it.
- A narrow agent that reliably does one thing beats a broad agent that sometimes does five.
- Show the failure handling. Judges love seeing what happens when the tool call errors out.
- Ask early. Nobody has ever regretted posting a question in the chat on October 3 instead of discovering the problem on October 11.
See you on stage October 13.
Hackathon lead: Shravanth Venkatesh, AWS User Group Leader, Bay Area