$5,000
Track 1 · AI code review
Never Merge Broken
Gitar reviews every pull request against your conventions, fixes what it finds and diagnoses failing CI.
Cloud Native Hackathon
Radar- Elasticsearch
01 / Prizes and tracks
$20,000 in cash across four tracks
One prize per sponsor. Use three of the tools and you're in the running for three prizes. A project enters every track whose tool it genuinely uses.
$5,000
Track 2 · Observability
Stop Flying Blind
Logs, metrics, traces, profiles and real-user monitoring in one place on OpenTelemetry, with AI agents that explain what broke.
Radar$5,000
Track 3 · Kubernetes UI
AI SRE
An open-source Kubernetes UI with an AI SRE that finds the root cause when something breaks, from the UI or your coding agent.
Elasticsearch
$5,000
Track 4 · Search and vector database
Find the Right Talk
The open source search engine and vector database: keyword, vector or hybrid search behind your app's data and your agents' RAG.
$50
OpenAI credits
For every participant, to build with. There's no OpenAI track or prize.
Swag
For everyone
Everyone who takes part goes home with some.
02 / Sponsors and ideas
Who you're building with
The four companies behind the tracks and what their tools do, with ideas for each. OpenAI covers the credits.
Hover for ideasAI code review · Track 1
Gitar is Sonar's AI code verification agent. It reviews your pull requests against your project's conventions, finds problems, generates fixes and diagnoses CI failures. With auto-apply turned on, it commits fixes and keeps iterating against your pipeline, while you stay in control of what gets applied and what can merge.
Ideas for Sonar
- A schedule builder where every feature lands through a Gitar-reviewed PR, with review instructions that make sure session times always handle time zones properly.
- A repository rule that kicks in whenever your API changes and checks your frontend still matches it.
- Breaking your CI on purpose and letting auto-apply fix it live during your demo.
Hover for ideasObservability · Track 2
Dash0 is an observability platform built on OpenTelemetry: logs, metrics, traces, profiles and real-user monitoring in one place, with no proprietary agent. Its AI agents, Agent0, explain what broke, and its MCP server lets Claude Code or Cursor query your live data.
Ideas for Dash0
- A live crowd map where check-ins become metrics and a Dash0 dashboard shows which rooms are filling up.
- A schedule app instrumented end to end, where your demo shows Agent0 explaining why "My agenda" slowed down when everyone opened it after the keynote.
- An AI assistant for attendees traced with OpenLIT, so you can see every LLM call, token and cost in Dash0.
RadarHover for ideasKubernetes UI · Track 3
Radar is an open-source Kubernetes UI from Skyhook. It shows everything running in your cluster in one place, and its AI SRE finds the root cause when something breaks, either from the Radar UI or from your coding agent (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and others) through Radar's MCP server.
Ideas for Radar, any of these on Kubernetes
- Talk picker. Reads your GitHub, builds your schedule and reshuffles it when a room fills up.
- Hallway track matchmaker. Finds the people in the building working on the same problem as you.
- Live crowd map. Shows which rooms are packed and which coffee line is shortest.
ElasticsearchHover for ideas
Search and vector database · Track 4
Elasticsearch is the open source search engine and vector database. Store your app's data in it and search it by keyword, by meaning with vector search, or both at once with hybrid search, so it can be the database behind your search, recommendations and the RAG for your AI agents.
Ideas for Elasticsearch
- A talk search where "something on eBPF and security" finds the right session even when those words aren't in the title.
- A hallway matchmaker that stores what everyone is working on as vectors and finds the closest matches in the building.
- A conference assistant that answers questions about the schedule using RAG over every talk abstract.
$50
In OpenAI credits for every participant, to build with. There's no OpenAI track or prize.
03 / Judging
Who you'll be presenting to
Demos run from 6:00 PM. A project built with three of the tools is in the running for three prizes, so say which tracks you're entering.
Joseph Sandoval
Principal Product Manager at Adobe, Vice Chair of the CNCF End User Technical Advisory Board
LinkedInMore judges to be announced
Hosted by Kunal Kushwaha, Diana Pham, Clint Berry
What the judges look for
Never Merge Broken
- Gitar is part of how you built, with features landing through PRs it reviewed, not one PR at the end.
- Project-aware setup, with review instructions and repository rules that reflect how your team actually works.
- Using CI failure diagnosis and auto-apply to fix real problems.
- How well your project makes conferences easier.
Stop Flying Blind
- Depth of instrumentation across your app, including traces, logs, metrics and real-user monitoring if you have a frontend.
- Using Agent0 or the MCP server to find and fix something real during the day, and showing it in your demo.
- Observability that's part of the product experience, not bolted on at the end.
- How well your project makes conferences easier.
RadarAI SRE
- Your project runs on Kubernetes with Radar connected to it.
- Using Radar's AI SRE to find and fix something real during the day, and showing it in your demo.
- How well your project makes conferences easier.
Elasticsearch
Find the Right Talk
- Elasticsearch is the core data layer of your app, not a side feature.
- Smart use of search, whether that's keyword, semantic, vector or hybrid.
- How well your project makes conferences easier.
04 / Schedule
Ten hours, check-in to winners
Monday, November 9, Mountain Time. Lunch lands at 2:00 PM with a panel Q&A with Kelsey, and the first hour of building is the one to get Dash0 wired up in.
- Check-in9:00 AM to 10:00 AM
- Breakfast10:00 AM to 11:00 AM
- Kickoff, tracks and sponsor sessions11:00 AM to 1:00 PM
- Build time1:00 PM to 2:00 PM
- Lunch, panel Q&A, then build time2:00 PM to 6:00 PM
- Presentations and winners6:00 PM to 7:00 PM
05 / Venue
The Shop Workspace, downtown Salt Lake City
Thirty thousand square feet of coworking in downtown Salt Lake City, with local art on the walls and a rooftop patio. The Shop calls itself the first carbon-neutral coworking space in Salt Lake, and the coffee is unlimited.
The Shop Workspace
350 E 400 S, Salt Lake City, UT 84111
Downtown, on the 400 South corridor
This is an in-person event, and we can't cover travel or accommodation.
Photos: The Shop Workspace, Austen Diamond Photography
Monday, November 9 · Salt Lake City
Make conferences better. Win $20,000 doing it.
Afterparty · Same night
House of Kube
Once the winners are announced, come hang out with us at the KubeCon after party. Free entry, no KubeCon ticket needed.