The Handover
Three days. A case file. One pull request.
The job
You are hired at a fintech company and handed a live, broken codebase left behind by a developer who vanished. Fix it, build the features in your brief, host it live, and follow the clues to find out what happened.
Thursday evening is the handover. Doors at 5:00 PM, the MC opens, the challenge is explained and the case files go out. You leave at 7:00 PM and start building.
Friday you build from wherever you want — the venue is open from 9:00 AM if you want a desk, and two talks run in the evening: hosting on Dilmune Cloud at 5:00 PM, coding properly with AI at 5:30 PM. Submission is a GitHub pull request against the challenge repo, and it has to be open by 10:00 PM on Friday, wherever you are working from.
Saturday is judging only — nothing is built. Be in at 12:30 PM, semi-final judging runs from 2:00 PM in five rooms, the top five teams pitch at 5:00 PM and the awards are at 6:00 PM. Placement comes out of the judges' scores — nobody picks a winner by hand.
Entries are closed for this edition.
- Dates
- Thu 29 – Sat 31 October 2026
- Venue
- Reboot01, Seef, Bahrain
- Format
- Teams of two
- Seats
- ~100 participants
- Entry fee
- 5 BHD per person
- Ages
- 18 and over (NCST under 18 welcome)
- Stack
- Go, Python and TypeScript
- Hosting
- Dilmune Cloud, required
- Submission
- GitHub PR by Fri 30 Oct, 10:00 PM
- Prize pool
- BD 550 across the top three teams
- Judging
- Five rooms, then final pitches on stage
- Talks
- Dilmune Cloud hosting, and coding with AI
The three days
The handover
- 5:00 PMDoors open, registration, case files handed out
- 5:30 PMIntroduction by the MC
- 5:45 PMThe challenge explained
- 7:00 PMHead home and start building
Build day and talks
- 9:00 AMVenue opens — building on site is optional
- 5:00 PMTalk: Hosting on Dilmune Cloud
- 5:30 PMTalk: Coding Properly with AI
- 6:00 PMDinner
- 7:30 PMVenue closes
- 10:00 PMSubmission deadline — from wherever you are
Judging and awards
- 12:30 PMArrive
- 1:00 PMLunch
- 2:00 PMSemi-final judging in 5 rooms, until 5:00 PM
- 5:00 PMTop 5 teams pitch
- 6:00 PMAwards
- 6:45 PMDinner
Snacks and drinks are provided on all three days. Both members of a team attend the be-here times.
Tech & hosting
A full-stack web app in Go, Python and TypeScript — you work across all three.
New to any of them? Come anyway — your AI tools can help.
Hosting on Dilmune Cloud is required: the app has to be live for the judges. Every participant gets a discount code.
Bring a laptop and charger, with a code editor, Git and a modern browser on it.
The rules
- 01Teams of two. Both members attend the be-here times.
- 02Open to ages 18 and over. NCST students under 18 are welcome too.
- 03Entry fee is 5 BHD per person.
- 04Any AI tools are allowed. Declare your tools and setup at the start.
- 05Personal templates or harness repos must be public and declared at registration.
- 06Work with the codebase you are given: fix it rather than rewriting from scratch.
- 07The core service stays as it is, and the database stays in place.
- 08Submit by 10:00 PM on Friday.
Prize money
Cash prizes for the top three teams, paid out on the night.
Placement is worked out from the judges’ scores alone — there is no vote and no override.
Sponsored by
