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Put your October pull requests into Kestra.

Two tracks, two podiums, and Kestra merch and goodies for everyone who lands a merge. Registration is open, submissions run October 1 to 31.

2
participation tracks
31
days to contribute
3+1
prize tiers per track
Register nowHow to enter

Running it with us

Two creators from the developer community are hosting the livestreams and taking your questions alongside our engineers.

  • Arsh Goyal

    Arsh Goyal

    AI and Engineering Creator

    Senior Software Engineer and an Engineering Creator. Arsh is an Engineering creator who creates content around Data and AI and has helped more than 50K+ engineers upskill. He is a university Gold Medalist, and has over 1.5M+ followers across social media.

  • Software engineering leader and creator of Coding Challenges, a community focused on helping developers become better engineers by building real software. John has led and scaled engineering teams across startups and global enterprises, while also having worked as a principal-level engineer on complex systems spanning AI, network optimisation, and low-latency finance. Today, John shares practical software engineering and AI-assisted development insights with a community of more than 200,000 developers.

What's up for grabs

Placement is based on merged, accepted pull requests only. The same three prizes are awarded independently to each track, so there are two full podiums.

  • An Apple iPad showing colourful shapes on its screen
    2nd place

    Apple iPad

    10th generation

  • A MacBook Neo showing the Kestra isometric cubes
    1st Place

    MacBook Neo

    13-inch screen

  • A $150 Amazon gift card
    3rd place

    $150 gift card

    Amazon

Podium or not, every contributor with a merged pull request gets Kestra merch and goodies, shipped worldwide once the winners are announced. In addition to the top three prize winners, we want to thank everyone for their contributions to Kestra.

How to enter

Two tracks, judged and rewarded independently. Enter either, or both. A contribution only counts once it is merged.

Fix something real in the codebase

Every eligible issue carries the good-first-issue label and has been scoped by a Kestra engineer, across the core repository and the plugin repositories.

  • Find a good-first-issue (a non good-first-issue can be worked on, but you would need to be assigned to the issue before starting your PR!).
  • Comment on the issue thread to let people know you're working on it, as part of Hacktoberfest
  • Submit your PR and include a before and after screenshot where the change is visible
  • Create a social media post (LinkedIn or X or Reddit) that talks about the issue, and tag it #KestraHacktoberfest
Browse the good-first-issue backlog

Contribution Rules

Before you write code

Follow the rules to ensure your submission qualifies

  • Only 2 PRs per participant can be open at any given time
  • The same issue can have PRs submitted by multiple participants. The PRs will be merged on a first-come, first-served basis.
  • PRs for good-first-issues must include a before and after screenshot where the change is visible
  • Must publish a minimum of one social media post that mentions your participation in Kestra's Hacktoberfest and what you have worked on
  • Typo-only, whitespace and auto-generated changes are closed as invalid PRs
Legal notice

The work has to be yours

By contributing you confirm you authored 100% of the content, that you hold the rights to it, and that it can be provided under the project licence. This is also why generated boilerplate you haven't reviewed and can't explain will not be merged.

Building Kestra locally

Fork the repository, then clone your fork. The backend is Micronaut and runs on port 8080; the frontend is Vue.js under /ui and runs on port 5173 with npm run dev.

Read the full contributing guide

Also see the plugin developer guide

You'll need

  • Java 25+
  • Node 24+ · npm 11+
  • Python 3 · pip · venv
  • Docker + Compose

Covered by the Kestra code of conduct · security issues go through a private security advisory, not public posts

Event schedule

  1. Launch and registration opens

    The announcement goes live across Kestra, Arsh's channels and John's on the same day. Rules, the issue backlog and the sign-up form are all live from this point.

  2. More Kestra Academy courses open

    Free certification covering Kestra data, AI and infrastructure automation, in addition to Kestra fundamentals already available. The fastest way to get ready before submissions open.

  3. Pre-launch livestream with Arsh Goyal

    A YouTube Live with Kestra engineers: what Kestra is, how to approach the hackathon, and open Q&A. Built for anyone new to the platform.

  4. Submissions open — kickoff livestream

    Co-hosted with John Crickett. A walkthrough of both tracks, a live demo of finding a good-first-issue and opening a pull request, then Q&A. 16:00 UK, 11:00 US Eastern, 08:00 US Pacific.

  5. Midpoint Q&A

    Live with Kestra maintainers. Get unstuck on a pull request, ask about blueprint design, hear what the judges are weighing.

  6. Final deadline

    Last day for a pull request to be opened and count toward either track. Closes 23:59 UTC.

  7. Winners livestream

    Judging wraps and both podiums are announced live, with a first look at the winning blueprints.

Resources

Everything you need before your first pull request.

Kestra Academy

Free certification. Start with fundamentals, then take the data, AI or infrastructure automation track. Start a course

Good-first-issue backlog

Curated, scoped and labelled across the core and plugin repositories. View issues

Blueprints gallery

Browse what already exists so your submission adds something new. Browse blueprints

Community Slack

Around 6,000 members, with Kestra engineers on hand through October to unblock you. Join the workspace

John's Discord

The Coding Challenges community channel for this hackathon — find teammates and compare notes. Join the channel

Kestra docs

Flows, tasks, plugins, triggers, and how to structure a blueprint that passes the bar. Open docs

Register, then go
find your first issue

Under a minute. We ask for your name, email and GitHub handle so merged pull requests can be matched to you, plus where you heard about the hackathon so the right community gets the credit.

Register now