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Hackathon Submission Helper

By solanabr· solanabr/solana-ai-kit· 0

Prepare a winning hackathon submission with track selection, demo scripts, and judging checklists.

Installation

  1. Make sure Claude is on your device and in your terminal.

    Skills load from ~/.claude/skills/ when Claude Code starts up — so you need it on your machine first. If you don't have it yet, install it once with the command below, then run claude in any terminal to verify.

    One-time setup
    npm i -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code

    Already have it? Skip ahead.

  2. Paste into Claude Code or into your terminal.
    Install
    Sign up to copy
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    This copies the whole skill folder into ~/.claude/skills/hackathon-solanabr/ — the SKILL.md plus any scripts, reference docs, or templates the skill ships with. Safe default: works for every skill.

    Faster alternative (instruction-only skills)

    Skips the clone and grabs only the SKILL.md file. Don't use this if the skill ships Python scripts, reference markdowns, or asset templates — they won't be downloaded and the skill will fail when it tries to load them.

    Quick install (SKILL.md only)
    Sign up to copy
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  3. Restart Claude Code.

    Quit and reopen Claude Code (or any other agent that loads from ~/.claude/skills/). New skills are picked up on startup.

  4. Just ask Claude.

    Skills auto-activate when your request matches the skill's description — no slash command needed. Trigger phrases live in the skill's own frontmatter; you can read them in the “What this skill does” section above.

Prefer to read the source first? Open on GitHub.

When Claude uses it

Prepare a winning hackathon submission. Use when the user says "hackathon submission", "submit to hackathon", "demo script", "demo video", "which track should I enter", "Colosseum", "help me win the hackathon", or asks about hackathon grants and Superteam Earn.

What this skill does

<!-- Adapted from sendaifun/solana-new (submit-to-hackathon, apply-grant), MIT © 2026 SendAI and Superteam. Telemetry removed. -->

Hackathon Submission

Track choice → scannable description → <3-min demo script → checklist. Optimize for a judge who has 90 seconds, not a reader who has 10 minutes.

Context handoff

At start, read .claude/context/idea.md and .claude/context/build.md if present — pull the pitch, wedge, and what actually works from them instead of asking again.

Workflow

1. Pick the least-crowded track

Winning a thin track beats placing in a fat one. Per candidate track: estimate entry volume, fit with what's actually built, and judge appetite (sponsor tracks often have the fewest serious entries).

  • Winner patterns + track history: hackathon-winners.md — every Colosseum grand champion and track winner, with what they built
  • Live crowdedness check: ext/colosseum — query 5,400+ past submissions for cluster density and gaps (requires COLOSSEUM_COPILOT_PAT)

2. Write a scannable description

Judges read 100+ submissions. Yours gets one skim deciding whether it gets a real read:

  • Tagline: what it does, one sentence, no jargon
  • First paragraph: problem + who has it
  • Bold the one thing that's novel
  • "What works today" list — demo-able claims only, never roadmap dressed as product
  • Why Solana (one concrete reason: speed, fees, composability with X)

Full structure (200–500 words, paragraph-by-paragraph): hackathon-submission-guide.md. Score the draft against judging-criteria.md before submitting.

3. Demo script (<3 minutes)

TimeBeat
0:00–0:20Problem — one user, one pain, no market-size slides
0:20–0:40What you built, one sentence + UI first appears
0:40–2:10The demo — one happy path, real data, on-chain proof (explorer tx)
2:10–2:40The novel part — the thing competitors don't have
2:40–3:00Traction/team one-liner + the ask

Shot-by-shot template and recording tips: demo-video-script.md. Rule: if the demo can fail live, record it.

4. Submission checklist

  • Track chosen by crowdedness, not vanity
  • Tagline passes the "non-crypto friend" test
  • Description scannable in 90 seconds (bold claims, short paragraphs)
  • Demo video <3 min, real transaction shown
  • Repo public, README quickstart actually works from clone
  • Deployed link (devnet OK) + program ID listed
  • Team and contact info complete
  • Pitch deck attached if track requires one — use pitch-deck

After the hackathon: grants

Losing the track doesn't mean losing the funding. Same artifacts (description, demo, deck) feed grant applications:

  • Superteam Earn (earn.superteam.fun) — bounties + grants up to ~$10k USDC equivalent, fast cycles, regional Superteams
  • Solana Foundation grants — milestone-based, public-good angle; reuse the scannable description with an ecosystem-benefit paragraph
  • Grant-shaped ideas dataset: superteam-ideas.json

Note: upstream apply-grant ships no inert reference files (SKILL.md only — excluded from routing), so grant guidance lives here.

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