Rules, Terms & Conditions, and Scoring
Dates & Judging
Submission Period
Monday, May 11 2026 (9:00 am UTC) – Sunday, June 14 2026 (11:45 pm UTC). Each Sunday at 11:45 UTC the bounty announced will be due and all submissions will be closed (anything submitted after this time will not be considered).
All projects must show evidence (e.g. a commit history) that demonstrates that either the project OR the features that you added to your software to make them eligible for the bounty were built between Mon, May 11, 2026 and the submission deadline for that bounty. Each team is required to use version control for your code throughout the course of the Hackathon and commit as your build. Any repositories with a small number of commits of large sets of files without proper history will be default assumed to be unqualified unless proven otherwise.
Judging Period
Monday, June 15, 2026 (12:00 am GMT) – Sunday, July 12, 2026.
Winners Announced
On or around Monday, July 13, 2026. We reserve the right to extend the judging period is there is an excessive number of entries to review.
Terms & Conditions
NO PURCHASE OR PAYMENT NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN. A PURCHASE OR PAYMENT WILL NOT INCREASE YOUR CHANCES OF WINNING.
SUBMISSION OF ANY ENTRY CONSTITUTES AGREEMENT TO THESE OFFICIAL RULES as a contract between entrant (and each individual member of entrant), the hackathon sponsor, and DoraHacks.
Intellectual Property Requirements
Your Submission must:
- Be your (or Team/Organization's) original work product
- Be solely owned by you with no other entity having rights
- Not violate IP rights (copyright, trademark, patent, contract, privacy) of others
- Permitted: Third-party technical assistance (if you own all rights), open source software/hardware (with proper license compliance).
- Use the Hedera Agent Kit (JavaScript or Python) as a dependency, as well as other dependencies listed on the particular bounty
- Include feedback submitted as a Github Issue to Hedera Agent Kit
Prohibited Projects & Financial or Preferential Support
Projects must NOT have been developed with financial or preferential support from Sponsor or Administrator, including:
- Projects that received funding/investment for development
- Projects developed under contract
- Projects that received commercial license
- Projects containing any intellectual property not owned or licensed for use by the project submitter
Note: Sponsor may disqualify projects that create real or apparent conflict of interest.
Rules
Who Cannot Participate
- Residents/Organizations in prohibited countries (including Russia, Crimea, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and other OFAC-designated countries)
- Promotion Entities and their employees, representatives, agents, and immediate family/household members
- Judges and their employers/family/household members
- Affiliates of any prohibited organization
- Anyone whose participation would create a conflict of interest
Additional Requirements
Submission Ownership: Must be original work of Entrant, solely owned by Entrant, and not violate IP rights of any other person or entity.
Testing Access: Provide access via website link, functioning demo or X post demonstrating entry, or test build. Must be published publicly. Free access required until the Judging Period ends.
Language: All materials must be in English or include English translation for video, description, testing instructions, and other materials.
Team Representation: Teams/organizations must appoint one authorized Representative to submit on their behalf. Representatives must meet eligibility requirements.
Multiple Submissions: Entrants may submit multiple Submissions if each is unique and substantially different.
Prize Limitation: No Entrant (individuals, teams, or organizations) may be awarded more than one prize across all categories. Only the highest-ranking submission will be eligible for a prize; others may receive honorable mentions without monetary rewards.
Modifications After Submission Period
The Sponsor and DoraHacks may permit you to modify part of your Submission after the Submission Period for the purpose of:
- Adding, removing, or replacing material that potentially infringes a third party mark or right
- Removing personally identifiable information
- Replacing otherwise inappropriate material
Requirement: The modified Submission must remain substantively the same as the original Submission with the only modification being what the Sponsor and DoraHacks permits.
Scoring
Qualifying Requirements
- A public Github repo that shows a commit history evidence of being created (or features being created) during the valid judging
- Depending on the Bounty, either a public (for 90 days) hosted agent that uses Hedera Agent Kit (or for bounty 3 the Hedera MCP/x402)
- There is either a public demo/video of the AI agent posed on X
- Residence in a qualifying jurisdiction and that the participant is at last 18 years of age
Scoring Criteria
| Name | Description | Weighting (%) |
|---|---|---|
| Technical Quality | What is the level of complexity, code quality, and architectural decisions? The project will be judged on a scale from beginner to expert technical quality. Either it shows beginner-level patterns (boilerplate, basic CRUD, simple wiring) or experienced-developer work (custom abstractions, non-trivial data flows, creative use of tools). | 25 |
| Use of AI Studio | Does the agent show useful applications of Hedera Agent Kit, Hedera MCP and or x402? The project or agent feature built should use the Hedera Agent Kit or other AI Studio tool as the core building block. | 25 |
| Innovation | Does the agent demonstrate a creative and novel approach within the Hedera Ecosystem, with a new use case, application, or market segment being addressed? The project should present a novel and creative approach to an existing or new problem or market need. | 15 |
| Feasibility | Does the AI agent present an applicable solution to a problem that addresses a market need? The project should present a realistic agentic solution for solving the needs and issues of real world users. | 20 |
| Demo Quality | How well is the idea and solution presented and communicated by the team? The demo, video, and README should accurately convey the purpose of the agent (what need or problem it solved), how it works, and how it could be applied. | 15 |