Build With AI: Basics is a new kind of hackathon launched by Devpost: shorter, built around learning, and open to join every month. The goal is to build a working first draft of an app in an afternoon using AI best practices, creating something useful for your work or life while acquiring reusable skills.
Many people struggle when asking AI to help code, often facing repeated mistakes, forgotten decisions, or unexplainable code. This hackathon addresses that by having participants build a proof of concept—a small app that runs end-to-end. To achieve this, you will install the Devpost Learn Skill Pack, which consists of step-by-step guides living inside your coding agent (such as Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, or any agent supporting skills). These skills interview you about your idea, help plan it before any code is written, build it with you, and prepare it for submission. By the end, you will have a running app, the plan that got you there, and a habit you can reuse on future projects.
Why Join? - Learn to plan before you build by letting the AI interview you, preventing projects from turning into a mess. - Try skills in your coding agent: reusable, step-by-step guides compatible across various agents. - Get help from real people through live build sessions, office hours, and live project reviews. - Compete for a share of the $2,500 prize pool. First place takes $1,250 plus a feature in the Devpost newsletter and socials. Everyone who submits an eligible project receives a Devpost Learn badge.
What to Build
Participants must build a new app using the Devpost Learn Skill Pack. The skills assist in finding an idea or refining one that is too large. There are three strict requirements checked at submission:
1. A new project started from an empty folder during the submission period (old ideas are fine, but old code is not).
2. Built using the skills within your coding agent.
3. Planning documents included in the repository: scope.md, prd.md, and spec.md generated by the skills.
Requirements & Submission
To participate, you need Node.js, Git, a coding agent that supports skills, and an empty project folder. You will run npx skills add challengepost/learn-ai-basics --all -y and then instruct your agent to "run 1-start." Participants are encouraged to join the Devpost Discord for questions and office hours.
Submissions require: - A short demo video (1 to 3 minutes) showing the project working end-to-end (reviewers will not clone or run code). - A public GitHub, GitLab, or BitBucket repo URL. - A short description explaining what the app does, who it is for, and what was learned.
Judging Criteria Projects are judged on: - Design: Does the project deliver a complete, coherent product experience? - Innovation/Idea: How creative and novel is the concept? - Presentation: Does the video clearly demonstrate the project working, and does the pitch communicate the problem solved and its importance?