Contest rules

The schedule

Every date and clock time for this contest appears here and nowhere else on this page. Times are given in Gulf Standard Time (GST) with India Standard Time (IST) beside them.

Applications close

25 August 2026, 23:59 GST — that is 01:29 IST on 26 August 2026

You have all of the 25th in Gulf time. The form stops accepting entries after this.

Test link issued

28 August 2026

Sent to the email you registered with, the day before the contest.

Contest day

29 August 2026

One day only. There is no second sitting.

Window opens

10:00 GST (11:30 IST)

The earliest you may begin.

Window closes

15:00 GST (16:30 IST)

The window is 5 hours long. Begin any time inside it.

Latest start for the full paper

13:30 GST (15:00 IST)

Begin after this and you get the time remaining to 15:00 GST, not the full 1 hour 30 minutes.

Time allowed once begun

1 hour 30 minutes

The clock starts when you open the paper and does not pause.

Prize detail published

by 31 August 2026

Announced to every registrant, whatever their result.

1 What this is, and the mission

A single-sitting online contest, run once, worldwide, covering both coding and aptitude. Read this whole document before you register: submitting a registration is acceptance of it.

1. 1.1

   The Digital Abbot Hackathon is an online contest sat individually, on one day, inside one published start window, under continuous video and screen proctoring.

   The schedule — every date, every clock time, in Gulf and India time — is published alongside these rules and is the only place those times appear.

   about.contest

2. 1.2

   The paper covers both coding and aptitude. A participant registered for both sits both components inside the same sitting; there is no separate second sitting for the other component.

   Whichever components you registered for, the sitting is 1 hour 30 minutes in total.

   about.both-components

3. 1.3

   Entry is open worldwide. There is no restriction by nationality, residence, institution or employer, subject only to the eligibility section and to local law.

   about.worldwide

4. 1.4

   The contest is run as a piece of digital community organising: a global call, answered individually, assembled into one cohort that sits the same paper on the same day.

   about.mission

5. 1.5

   In practice, digital community organising means you are encouraged to carry the call outward — post it, translate it, brief your class, your workplace or your local developer group, run a preparation session, sit at the same hour as friends and compare notes afterwards. The mission stops at the paper: nothing about it permits assistance, discussion or exchange of content during a sitting or during the start window.

   Organising is measured in people who register, not in answers exchanged. Bringing ten people to the paper is the contribution; helping one of them through it is a breach — which is why the limit is stated in the same clause as the encouragement, and not left to the conduct section to spring on somebody later.

   about.organising-practice

6. 1.6

   These rules bind every registrant in the version and with the effective date printed on the copy issued to them. Where a decision is taken under these rules it names the clause it relies on, by its identifier.

   That is what the identifiers are for. A rule you cannot cite cannot be applied consistently, and a decision that cites nothing cannot be appealed.

   about.rules-binding

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2 Who may enter

1. 2.1

   You must be 16 years of age or older on the day you register. There is no upper age limit.

   16 is the same figure the registration form enforces; the form refuses an entry below it rather than accepting one and cancelling it later.

   elig.age

2. 2.2▲ Disqualifying

   The date of birth given at registration must be consistent with the government photo identity document shown before the paper opens. If the document shows the participant to be under 16, the participation ends and no result is issued.

   elig.age-proof

3. 2.3

   School students, undergraduates, postgraduates, recent graduates, working professionals and self-taught developers may all enter. No qualification, enrolment or employment is required.

   elig.status

4. 2.4▲ Disqualifying

   One entry per person and one person per entry. Registering more than once, under more than one email address, or under any name other than your own, ends every participation associated with those entries and ends the participation of the person behind them.

   Duplicate entries are found by comparing identity documents at check-in, not only by comparing email addresses.

   elig.one-entry

5. 2.5▲ Disqualifying

   The person who registered is the person who sits the paper, alone, for its whole length. Arranging for anybody else to sit any part of it ends the participation of both people, if both are registrants.

   elig.no-substitution

6. 2.6

   Employees, contractors and directors of the company, and their immediate family members, may enter and may be ranked, but are not eligible for an internship offer or for any prize. A registrant covered by this exclusion must declare it in writing, to the contact address in the final section, before the start window opens.

   They are welcome in the cohort and excluded from the reward. Immediate family means a spouse or partner, parent, child or sibling. An undeclared connection discovered afterwards annuls the ranking, so declaring costs nothing and not declaring costs the sitting.

   elig.employees

7. 2.7

   Entry is void where it is prohibited or restricted by law. It is the entrant’s responsibility to be sure that participating, and receiving any prize or offer, is lawful where they are.

   elig.law-void

8. 2.8

   The company cannot register an entrant, issue a link, or make an internship offer or payment where doing so would breach applicable sanctions or export-control law. Such an entry is void and the ranking passes to the next participant.

   A void entry under this clause is not a finding of misconduct and carries no bar from future events.

   elig.sanctions

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3 Registration

1. 3.1

   Registration collects your name, email address, phone number, country and city, date of birth, current status and institution or employer, the components you are entering, your skills and years of coding, any links you choose to give, your interests and availability, and a short note in your own words.

   Nothing else is required to enter. What happens to it afterwards is in the data section.

   reg.collected

2. 3.2▲ Disqualifying

   Everything stated at registration must be true and must describe you. A material misstatement — a name that is not yours, an age that is not yours, an identity that is not yours — ends the participation whenever it is discovered, including after results.

   reg.accuracy

3. 3.3

   The form stops accepting entries at the closing instant published in the schedule, which is expressed in Gulf time with the equivalent local time beside it. No entry is accepted after that instant, for any reason, including one begun before it and completed after; there is no waiting list and no late intake.

   Registration closes at the end of the closing day in Gulf time, not at the start of it. The paper is sealed before the window opens, and a late entry cannot be admitted without reopening a sealed set.

   reg.close

4. 3.4

   A successful registration returns a short reference code. Quote it in every message you send about your entry.

   The code is a receipt, not a credential: it identifies your entry in a support thread and authorises nothing on its own.

   reg.reference

5. 3.5▲ Disqualifying

   The test link is sent to the email address you registered with, and only to that address. Keeping that address reachable — spelled correctly, with capacity, and not filtering our mail as spam — is the entrant’s responsibility and the entrant’s risk. An unreachable address means an unissued link, and an unissued link means no sitting.

   Add the sending domain to your safe senders before the issue date, and check the spam folder on the issue day. A link that bounced cannot be reissued after the window has closed.

   reg.email-reachable

6. 3.6

   Two consents are mandatory to enter: acceptance of these rules, and consent to the processing and recording described in the data section. An entry without both is not a valid entry.

   Consent to updates about future events is separate and optional, and refusing it changes nothing about your participation.

   reg.consents

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4 The test link, the window and the clock

The times themselves are in the schedule. This section is what they mean.

1. 4.1

   The test link is issued on the date given in the schedule, the day before the contest, to the registered email address.

   It is sent a day early so that nobody spends the morning of the contest refreshing an inbox.

   window.link-issued

2. 4.2▲ Disqualifying

   The link is single-use and bound to the registered email address. It is not transferable. Forwarding, publishing or selling it, or attempting to open it as anybody other than the registrant, ends the participation.

   The platform is configured to bind the link to one address and to permit one sitting through it.

   window.link-bound

3. 4.3

   The start window opens and closes at the times given in the schedule and is 5 hours long. You may begin at any moment inside it; you do not book a slot and you are not assigned one. Once you open the paper it runs for 1 hour 30 minutes, and it closes and submits itself at the end of that period or at the close of the window, whichever comes first.

   Choose a start time that leaves you undisturbed for the whole sitting. Nothing rewards an early start.

   window.open

4. 4.4

   The latest start time for the full paper is published in the schedule. Begin at or before it and you get the full 1 hour 30 minutes. Begin after it and you get only the time remaining until the window closes.

   This is the rule most often misread and the one that decides the most appeals, which is why it is published as a time rather than left as arithmetic to be done on the morning.

   window.latest-start

5. 4.5

   The clock starts when the paper opens and does not pause. It does not pause for a phone call, a doorbell, a power cut, a lost connection, a device failure or a reload of the page.

   The clock is kept by the platform, not by your device, so closing the browser does not stop it.

   window.no-pause

6. 4.6

   The window is not extended for any individual, for any reason. An extension for one participant would mean that participant sat a paper others had already discussed.

   window.no-extension

7. 4.7Warning

   If your connection or device fails, return through the same link and the sitting resumes where it stopped, with the clock having continued to run throughout. You have 10 minutes from the drop to be back in, and the return must be inside the window.

   A bounded grace, not a re-sit: it protects the participant whose router restarted without creating a way to buy thinking time by pulling a cable.

   window.disconnection

8. 4.8Warning

   A sitting may be resumed one time. A second disconnection, or a return after the grace period or after the window has closed, ends the sitting, and whatever was submitted up to that moment is scored as the submission.

   Work already saved is not discarded. The sitting simply stops.

   window.reconnect-once

9. 4.9

   Your device, your power and your connection are your responsibility. Their failure is not grounds for a re-sit, an extension or a second window, and there is no second sitting for anybody.

   Sit somewhere with a stable connection, on mains power or a charged battery, and close everything you do not need.

   window.own-equipment

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5 Before the paper opens: identity and the room

Check-in happens before the clock starts, so time spent verifying identity and showing the room does not come out of the paper. Allow for it inside the window.

1. 5.1

   The paper does not open until check-in is complete. Identity verification and the room sweep happen first, and the clock starts only when the first question is shown.

   Begin check-in well before the latest start time published in the schedule. Check-in time counts against the window, never against the paper.

   before.check-in-first

2. 5.2

   You must show a valid government-issued photo identity document to the camera before the paper opens: a passport, national identity card, residence permit or driving licence. A student card, a screenshot of a document, or a photograph of a photograph is not accepted.

   before.id-document

3. 5.3▲ Disqualifying

   The name on the identity document must match the name you registered with. A different person’s document, or a document in a name that is not the registrant’s, ends the participation.

   Ordinary variation — a middle name, a transliteration, a married name with supporting evidence — is resolved by a reviewer and is not a breach.

   before.name-match

4. 5.4▲ Disqualifying

   Your face, live on camera, must match the photograph on the identity document, and must be the face that remains in frame for the whole sitting. A face that does not match the document means the paper does not open, and a different face appearing in the recording later ends the sitting.

   before.face-match

5. 5.5▲ Disqualifying

   A participant who will not show an identity document, will not show their face, or will not complete the room sweep does not sit the paper. No result is issued and no re-sit is offered.

   This is not a penalty for a technical problem. A participant whose camera has failed should contact us before the window rather than decline the check.

   before.refusal

6. 5.6

   What is checked is the name, the photograph, the document type and that the document is unexpired. You may cover the document number and any other field before showing it; nothing you cover is checked and nothing you cover is required.

   The image captured at check-in is kept for the short period stated in the data section and is not used for any purpose other than confirming the person who sat the paper.

   before.id-what-checked

7. 5.7

   Before the paper opens you will be asked to move the camera slowly around the room, including the desk surface, the area behind your screen and the door, so that the space you are sitting in is on record.

   Take it slowly. A sweep too fast or too dark to see is treated as an incomplete sweep and will be asked for again.

   before.room-sweep

8. 5.8

   The desk carries only what this document permits: the device you are sitting on, its keyboard and pointer, a drink, and the single sheet of blank paper and pen allowed in the materials section. Books, notes, printouts, tablets, second keyboards and additional screens are off the desk and out of reach.

   before.desk-clear

9. 5.9

   One display only. Additional monitors are physically disconnected or powered off, not merely unused, and a projector or television being fed by the same device counts as an additional display.

   A second display that becomes active during the sitting is a focus event under the focus section.

   before.one-monitor

10. 5.10

    Your phone and any other personal device is silenced and placed out of arm’s reach, face down or powered off, and stays there for the whole sitting. It is shown to the camera in that position during the sweep.

    Smart watches, wireless earbuds and any wearable with a screen or an audio channel are removed and left out of reach as well.

    before.phone

11. 5.11▲ Disqualifying

    You sit alone. Nobody else may be in the room at any point during the sitting, not passing through, not sleeping, not sitting quietly out of shot. A second person present ends the sitting.

    If you cannot secure a room alone for the whole sitting, tell us before the window rather than starting and hoping.

    before.alone

12. 5.12

    Position yourself so that the door to the room, or the entrance to the space, is within the camera’s view or visible behind you in frame.

    It is the cheapest control there is: it makes an entry visible instead of arguable.

    before.door

13. 5.13

    Light the room so that your face is clearly visible throughout, lit from in front rather than behind. A silhouette against a window is not a visible face, and a face that cannot be seen is treated as a face out of frame.

    before.lighting

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6 Video, audio and screen proctoring

This is the centre of the rule set. The paper is sat under continuous recording, and the controls below are what make a result from a bedroom worth the same as a result from an examination hall. Every threshold here is a contest rule, configured on the platform and enforced by it, and each one is shown to you before you begin.

1. 6.1▲ Disqualifying

   Consent to video, audio and screen recording is mandatory to sit the paper. A participant who does not consent cannot be admitted to the sitting. Withdrawing consent during the sitting ends it at that moment.

   A participant who does not want to be recorded may withdraw before the window opens with no consequence at all — see the data section.

   proctor.consent-required

2. 6.2

   Your webcam records continuously from check-in until the paper is submitted. The camera stays on for the whole sitting and is not paused, minimised or switched between devices.

   proctor.video-continuous

3. 6.3

   Your microphone records continuously for the same period. Audio is part of the record because a proxy who is being told what to type is audible long before they are visible.

   proctor.audio-continuous

4. 6.4

   Your entire screen is captured continuously for the same period, not merely the window containing the paper. If the platform offers a choice of capture source, you select the whole screen.

   A capture of one window shows nothing about the second window, which is the only window that matters.

   proctor.screen-continuous

5. 6.5

   Your face remains fully in frame, facing the screen, for the whole sitting. Looking down at permitted scratch paper on the desk is expected and is not a breach; leaving the frame is.

   proctor.face-in-frame

6. 6.6▲ Disqualifying

   Absence of your face from frame is measured in seconds and treated in three steps: below 15 seconds it is recorded and no action follows; a cumulative total above 60 seconds across the sitting is flagged for review by a person; a single continuous absence of 120 seconds or more ends the sitting.

   Published in seconds, with numbers, because "you kept leaving the camera" is not something anybody can appeal against. These are the thresholds the platform is configured to enforce and the timings a reviewer reads back.

   proctor.face-absent

7. 6.7▲ Disqualifying

   A second face in frame ends the sitting. It makes no difference whether the second person spoke, looked at the screen, or was only passing behind you.

   This is why the room must be secured before the paper opens, and why the door is in view.

   proctor.second-face

8. 6.8▲ Disqualifying

   A voice other than yours that is giving you information, reading the paper, or answering a question ends the sitting. Isolated background sound — traffic, a television in another room, a voice through a wall — is flagged, reviewed by a person, and not itself a breach.

   Reading the questions aloud to yourself is permitted and is not an "other voice"; it is, however, audible to whoever else is in the room, which is your risk to manage.

   proctor.other-voice

9. 6.9▲ Disqualifying

   Covering, obscuring, angling away, unplugging, disabling or switching off the camera during the sitting ends it. The same applies to the microphone.

   A camera that fails on its own is handled as a disconnection under the window section: return through the same link, with the clock still running.

   proctor.camera-blocked

10. 6.10▲ Disqualifying

    Feeding the platform anything other than a live camera pointed at you ends the sitting. Virtual cameras, video loopback devices, pre-recorded or looped video, and filters or effects that alter your face or the room are all prohibited.

    Background blur and virtual backgrounds are included: they hide the room the sweep was for.

    proctor.virtual-camera

11. 6.11▲ Disqualifying

    Sitting the paper inside a virtual machine, or through remote-desktop, remote-assistance, screen-sharing, screen-streaming or session-recording software operated by anybody else, ends the sitting. Such software is closed before check-in, not merely left idle.

    The platform is configured to detect these and the screen capture shows them. Close conferencing and remote-support software before you begin.

    proctor.remote-control

12. 6.12▲ Disqualifying

    Headphones, earphones and earbuds are not worn during the sitting, wired or wireless, and are out of reach with your phone. Wearing them ends the sitting.

    The position is deliberate and is about one thing: a private audio channel into your ear is the cheapest way to be coached through a paper, and an open room microphone is the only way to show there was not one. The paper requires no audio, so nothing is lost by removing them. If you need audio for an accessibility reason, use the clause below.

    proctor.headphones

13. 6.13

    If a control in this section is incompatible with a disability or a medical need — audio output, assistive software, a support person, a longer sitting, a break — write to us before the window opens and an accommodation will be agreed in writing and recorded against your entry.

    An accommodation agreed in advance is a variation of these rules, not a breach of them. An undeclared need discovered in the recordings can only be assessed afterwards, which is much worse for the participant.

    proctor.accessibility

14. 6.14▲ Disqualifying

    There is no break. The sitting runs for 1 hour 30 minutes continuously and you do not leave your seat during it, including for the bathroom, a drink or a door. Leaving the seat is recorded as an absence from frame, is treated under the absence thresholds above, and ends the sitting once it passes the top threshold.

    Stated flatly because a participant who assumes a break exists will plan on one. Use the bathroom and fill a glass before you begin, and choose a start time that suits that.

    proctor.no-break

15. 6.15Warning

    A period of the sitting for which video, audio or screen capture is missing cannot be proctored, and work done during it cannot be credited. If the recording stops, the sitting is suspended until it is restored under the disconnection clauses, with the clock continuing to run.

    The symmetrical half of this regime: if we cannot show what happened, we do not get to assume the worst, and we do not get to score it either.

    proctor.recording-loss

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7 Full screen, focus and tab switching

The paper is sat in full screen and nothing else is open. A ladder is published rather than a single rule, so that a stray notification is not treated as cheating and a pattern of searching is not treated as a stray notification. The counts below are the counts the platform is configured to enforce, and your running total is visible to you throughout.

1. 7.1

   The paper runs in full screen for the whole sitting. Entering full screen is part of check-in, and the paper does not begin until you are in it.

   focus.fullscreen

2. 7.2

   A focus event is any of: leaving full screen, switching to another tab, switching to another window or application, minimising the paper, a second display becoming active, or the paper otherwise losing focus or becoming hidden. Each event is recorded with its start and its length in seconds, and the cause does not change the count — an operating-system update, a notification, a mistyped key combination and a deliberate search are all recorded identically.

   The platform sees the event and not the intention, which is exactly why the first steps of the ladder are warnings rather than endings and why the last step is a number you can watch approaching. Silence notifications and close everything else before you begin: what caused an event is your responsibility, and the ladder is what protects you when one slips through.

   focus.definition

3. 7.3Warning

   First step of the ladder: a single focus event shorter than 5 seconds is recorded and produces an on-screen warning. Nothing else follows.

   One accident is an accident.

   focus.ladder-warn

4. 7.4Warning

   Second step: any single focus event of 10 seconds or longer, or a third event of any length, produces a further warning and is flagged for review by a person after the sitting.

   A flag is not a verdict. What happens to a flag is in the conduct section.

   focus.ladder-review

5. 7.5▲ Disqualifying

   Third step: reaching 5 focus events, or a cumulative focus duration of 60 seconds, whichever comes first, ends the sitting. Work submitted up to that moment is scored; the rest is not.

   The numbers exist so that this is arithmetic rather than judgement, and so that an appeal can be answered by reading the log back.

   focus.ladder-end

6. 7.6

   Your focus-event count and cumulative focus time are shown to you during the sitting, and each warning states which step of the ladder you are on and what the next step is.

   A ladder you cannot see is a trap. This clause is what makes it a rule.

   focus.counter-visible

7. 7.7▲ Disqualifying

   A second browser, a second browser profile, a private or incognito window, or a second instance of the paper open anywhere ends the sitting.

   focus.no-second-browser

8. 7.8▲ Disqualifying

   Opening developer tools, a browser console, a network inspector or a page-source view during the sitting ends it. So does modifying, instrumenting or automating the page in any way.

   This is not about curiosity. Inspecting the paper is how answers, scoring logic and other participants’ endpoints are found.

   focus.no-devtools

9. 7.9▲ Disqualifying

   Browser extensions that can read or alter page content — assistants, autofill and form fillers, translators, summarisers, scrapers, screenshot and note-capture tools, ad and script blockers — are disabled for the sitting. Sitting with one enabled ends the sitting.

   Sit in a clean profile with no extensions rather than trying to remember which of yours reads page content.

   focus.no-extensions

10. 7.10▲ Disqualifying

    A second display becoming active during the sitting ends it, whether or not anything was shown on it, because a capture of one screen cannot account for the other.

    focus.second-display

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8 What you may have, and what you may not

Concrete rather than principled, so that nothing has to be guessed at on the morning. If something is not permitted here, it is not permitted.

1. 8.1

   You sit on your own machine, with your own keyboard and pointer, on one display, using the operating system and browser of your choice, provided it meets the platform’s stated requirements.

   materials.own-machine

2. 8.2

   Code is written either in the editor the platform provides in the browser or, where the platform allows it, locally in your own editor with the work pasted or uploaded back through the test link. Which of the two applies is stated with the link, and the same arrangement applies to every participant.

   Written so that either arrangement is covered. What does not vary is the submission route: everything is submitted through the link, and nothing sent by any other channel is scored.

   materials.editor

3. 8.3

   If you write locally, your editor and terminal are on the captured screen for the whole time you are working in them. Work done off the captured screen cannot be proctored and cannot be credited.

   materials.local-visible

4. 8.4

   Where the platform provides language or library documentation inside the paper, that copy is the only reference you may consult. Where it does not, no documentation may be consulted, because opening it elsewhere is a focus event under the ladder above.

   The position is deliberate. Everyone gets identical reference material or nobody gets any, and the alternative — "official documentation only, in another tab" — is unenforceable, since a tab cannot be proved to have held only documentation.

   materials.docs

5. 8.5

   One sheet of blank paper and one pen are permitted. Both are shown to the camera, blank, during the room sweep, and the sheet is shown to the camera again, both sides, at the end of the sitting.

   Permitted because the aptitude component involves reasoning that most people do on paper, and refusing scratch working advantages nobody. Shown at both ends because a sheet that was blank at the start and is covered in working at the end is exactly what it should be — while a sheet that arrives with writing on it, or leaves with the questions copied onto it, is not.

   materials.paper-and-pen

6. 8.6▲ Disqualifying

   Every AI assistant and every form of machine-generated code completion is disabled for the whole sitting: chat assistants, in-editor assistants, agentic coding tools, command-line assistants, browser assistants, and our own DigitOracle. Sitting with one available ends the participation.

   Said plainly because it will feel strange: many participants use these tools every working hour, and are better engineers for it. This paper measures the part that is yours, over a short and fixed period, so that a ranking means something about you rather than about your subscriptions. Plain syntax highlighting, bracket matching, and completion of identifiers that already exist in your own file are not assistants and remain permitted; anything that generates a line, a block or a solution is. Turn assistant plug-ins off at the source before check-in — signed out or uninstalled, not merely un-invoked — and be ready to show the editor’s settings to the camera if asked, because an assistant that is installed and available is treated as available.

   materials.no-ai

7. 8.7▲ Disqualifying

   No other person may assist you in any way during the sitting: not in the room, not on a call, not by message, not by looking at your screen remotely, and not by sitting the paper for you. Any such assistance ends the sitting, and ends the participation of every registrant involved in it.

   materials.no-second-person

8. 8.8▲ Disqualifying

   No second device may be used or within reach during the sitting — no phone, tablet, second computer, e-reader, smart watch, wearable or connected earpiece. Their presence within reach ends the sitting, whether or not they were used.

   materials.no-second-device

9. 8.9▲ Disqualifying

   Pre-written solutions, personal snippet libraries, template repositories and prepared answer notes may not be used. Language built-ins and standard libraries available to every participant are not snippets and are permitted.

   The line is availability: what ships with the language is available to everyone; what is in your own private folder is not.

   materials.no-prewritten

10. 8.10▲ Disqualifying

    You may not disclose any part of the paper — a question, a variant, a screenshot, a transcription, your approach or your answer — to anybody, publicly or privately, at any time before the question set is released. Doing so ends the participation of the discloser, and of any registrant who solicited it.

    It applies whether or not the discloser had finished sitting, and whether or not anybody acted on what was disclosed. The window is long enough for one participant to finish before another begins, and this clause is the whole reason it can be that long.

    materials.no-sharing-in-window

11. 8.11▲ Disqualifying

    Automated access to the paper is prohibited: scripted requests, scraping, bulk download of questions or assets, and any attempt to enumerate, extract or reconstruct the question set outside the paper itself.

    materials.no-automation

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9 The paper is sealed, and the leaders are verified

Two controls that cut in both directions: one lets you check that we did not change the paper while it was running, and one lets us check that the person who wrote the winning answer is the person who is offered the internship.

1. 9.1

   A cryptographic hash of the complete question set is published before the start window opens, on the rules page and in the message that carries the test link.

   It is a hash of the sealed set, not of any one participant’s paper.

   paper.hash-published

2. 9.2

   The complete question set is published after the window closes, together with the reference answers and the marking scheme.

   paper.set-published-after

3. 9.3

   Because the hash was published first, anyone can hash the released set themselves and confirm it is the same set: no question can be added, removed, reworded or reweighted after the seal without the two failing to match.

   What it guarantees for you: the paper you sat is the paper everyone sat, and neither we nor anybody else can quietly edit it mid-window and pretend otherwise.

   paper.guarantee

4. 9.4

   Question order is randomised per participant, and some questions are drawn as one of several equivalent variants. Variants are built to the same specification, the same difficulty band and the same marking scale.

   paper.randomised

5. 9.5

   Receiving a different question order, or a different variant from another participant, is not grounds for appeal. A demonstrable defect in a specific question is, and is corrected for every participant who received it.

   Corrected means the defect is fixed in the marking of that question for everyone affected — not that one participant is re-scored on a different basis from the rest.

   paper.variant-not-appealable

6. 9.6

   Before any internship offer is made, the top-ranked participants sit a short live verification: a recorded video call of 15 to 30 minutes, scheduled by agreement after results.

   This is a normal step for everyone in contention, not an accusation and not a second examination. Nobody is singled out by being invited.

   paper.verify-leaders

7. 9.7

   In the verification you walk through your own submitted solution, explain why you approached it as you did, and answer follow-up questions about it. You may be asked to describe how you would extend or change it. The call is recorded, under the same consent requirement and the same retention rules as the sitting itself.

   You are not asked to solve anything new, and you are not marked again on the paper.

   paper.verify-content

8. 9.8▲ Disqualifying

   A participant who does not attend the verification within the agreed scheduling period, or who cannot explain the work submitted under their own name, forfeits their ranking and any offer attached to it, and the ranking passes to the next participant.

   This is the control that actually answers a proxy sitting: a stand-in can pass a paper and cannot explain it a week later. It is stated here as a published step so that nobody meets it as a surprise.

   paper.verify-failure

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10 Scoring, ranking and ties

1. 10.1

   Scoring is deterministic. The same submission, marked again, always yields the same score: the marking scheme, the test cases and the answer keys are fixed before the window opens and are not adjusted for individuals.

   scoring.deterministic

2. 10.2

   Every submission is stored so that its marking can be re-run unchanged. A re-run is what an appeal about a score actually gets, and the result of a re-run is reported to the participant.

   scoring.rerunnable

3. 10.3

   Partial credit exists on the coding component. A solution that is correct on some cases, or correct but inefficient, scores accordingly rather than scoring nothing.

   Where a question states a complexity or performance requirement, meeting it is part of the marks for that question.

   scoring.partial-credit

4. 10.4

   The relative weight of the coding and aptitude components is published before the start window opens, with the paper. It is the same for every participant sitting the same components.

   The weighting is not fixed in this version of the rules and is not stated here. It will not be decided, or changed, after any paper has been sat.

   scoring.weighting-published

5. 10.5

   The number of questions and the total marks are published with the paper before the window opens, and are not stated in this version of the rules.

   scoring.shape-published

6. 10.6

   Ties are broken in this order and no other: total score first; then accuracy on the aptitude component; then the earlier submission time. Each criterion is applied only if the one before it leaves the tie unresolved.

   Submission time is the platform’s server time for the submission, not the time your device displayed.

   scoring.tie-break

7. 10.7

   Any participant may request their own score breakdown — marks per question, marks lost and where — and it is provided. You may not request anybody else’s.

   scoring.breakdown

8. 10.8

   Rank is determined by the scored paper alone. Nothing in your registration, your links, your institution, your employer, your country or your community activity affects it.

   Community organising is the mission and is not a tie-break. Bringing people to the contest earns you nothing on the paper, and it was never meant to.

   scoring.only-the-paper

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11 What is recorded, who reviews it, and what follows

The signals below are recorded and reviewed for every participant. The single most important clause in this document is that a flag is not a verdict: an anomaly is read by a person, put to the participant in specific terms, and answered before any decision is taken. That is what makes a regime this strict defensible rather than merely severe.

1. 11.1

   The following are recorded for every sitting and reviewed afterwards: paste events and large text insertions with their timestamps and sizes, focus events with their durations, time spent per question, editing and typing patterns, submission times, and the video, audio and screen recordings themselves.

   conduct.telemetry

2. 11.2

   Submissions are compared against each other, against published sources and against previous cohorts for similarity in answers, code structure, identifier naming, comments and error patterns.

   Two people can reach the same correct answer. Two people rarely reach the same wrong answer by the same route, and that is what similarity review is looking for.

   conduct.similarity

3. 11.3Note

   A flag is never itself a disqualification. Two different things are called ending in this document and they are not the same: where a published threshold in the proctoring or focus sections is reached, the sitting stops at that moment and the paper accepts no further answers — that is the sitting ending, and it is arithmetic done against a number published in advance. It is not the participation ending. No automated signal, no score, no similarity measure, no threshold breach and no automatic stop produces, on its own, a disqualification, a withheld result, a forfeited ranking or a bar. Each one is read by a person, put to the participant in the terms the clauses below require, and answered before any of those follows.

   Read that clause again if a flag has been raised against you, or if your sitting was stopped while you were sitting it: the stop is not the decision. It is the difference between a control and an accusation, and it is binding on us — the specific notice, the response period and the reasoned, clause-citing decision in the clauses that follow apply to a sitting the platform stopped by itself exactly as they apply to one a reviewer flagged by hand.

   conduct.flag-not-verdict

4. 11.4

   Every flagged anomaly is reviewed by a named person, who reads the recording and the log around it before forming any view. Reviewers are identified in the decision they issue.

   conduct.human-review

5. 11.5

   A participant whose sitting is flagged, or whose sitting was stopped before they submitted, is told what was flagged or what stopped it, specifically: which clause, what the signal was, when it occurred, and how long it lasted. Vague notice is not notice.

   The two cases are named together because the second is the one that hurts. A participant whose paper closed under them is owed the log that closed it, in the same detail and by the same clause, and is owed it whether or not anything further follows.

   conduct.told-what-flagged

6. 11.6

   You have 48 hours from that notice to respond, in writing, with anything you want considered. No decision on a flag is taken before your response is received or that period has passed.

   A response is not an admission and asking for the evidence is not an admission either.

   conduct.right-to-respond

7. 11.7

   A decision states the clause identifier it relies on, the evidence relied on, the step of the ladder applied and the reason that step was chosen. A decision that cannot cite a clause is not issued.

   conduct.decision-cites

8. 11.8▲ Disqualifying

   Submitting work that is not yours as though it were — copied from another participant, from a published source, from a repository or from a previous cohort — is plagiarism and ends the participation.

   Using a language’s standard library, or a well-known algorithm you can explain, is not plagiarism.

   conduct.plagiarism

9. 11.9▲ Disqualifying

   Working with anybody else on the paper, in either direction, at any time before the question set is released, is collusion and ends the participation of everybody involved who is a registrant.

   Giving help ends your participation as surely as receiving it. This is the clause most often quoted back to us by the participant who only helped a friend.

   conduct.collusion

10. 11.10▲ Disqualifying

    Sitting the paper as somebody else, having somebody else sit any part of it for you, or presenting another person’s identity document, is impersonation. It ends the participation, is not subject to the lower steps of the ladder, and carries the bar below.

    conduct.impersonation

11. 11.11▲ Disqualifying

    Abuse, harassment, threats or discriminatory conduct toward staff, reviewers or other participants ends the participation immediately, at any stage, including after results, and carries the bar below.

    This one is not about integrity of the paper. It is about the cohort being somewhere people are willing to be.

    conduct.abuse

12. 11.12

    Consequences run on a ladder: a recorded warning; the score for one question annulled; the sitting annulled; disqualification from the contest; and a bar from future events of this kind for 24 months.

    Published as a ladder so that a proportionate outcome is available. Not every irregularity is cheating, and treating them alike would mean either forgiving everything or ending everything.

    conduct.ladder

13. 11.13

    The lowest step that fits the finding is applied. A higher step is used only where the finding supports it, and the decision says why that step was chosen rather than the one below it.

    The bar from future events is reserved for impersonation, abuse, and a second substantiated breach by the same person.

    conduct.proportionality

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12 The internship offers

1. 12.1

   Exactly two participants are offered internships: the two highest-ranked eligible participants after scoring, review and live verification.

   two is the whole number of offers attached to this contest. Nothing in these rules creates a third.

   internship.count

2. 12.2

   The internships are in the fields the company actually works in: language models and agents, computer vision, geospatial and 3D on the web, BIM and digital twins, document understanding, and the data engineering that carries all of it.

   Each of those exists in the company’s own codebase today. The specific placement is agreed with the participant rather than assigned from a ranking.

   internship.fields

3. 12.3

   What the top-ranked participants receive is an offer, not an appointment. It is subject to the usual pre-appointment checks, to confirmation of identity, and to a written internship agreement signed by both sides.

   Worded carefully because it will be quoted back to us. Until an agreement is signed there is an offer and nothing more.

   internship.offer-not-award

4. 12.4

   An offer is conditional on completing the live verification described in the paper section. A participant who forfeits their ranking there forfeits the offer with it.

   internship.conditional-on-verification

5. 12.5

   An offer is conditional on the participant having, or being able to obtain, the right to work in the location the placement is performed from, and on any minimum age, parental consent or study-permission requirement that applies there.

   The contest is worldwide; employment law is not. Where a placement cannot lawfully be performed, we will discuss what is possible rather than pretend the constraint away.

   internship.right-to-work

6. 12.6

   A participant who declines an offer, does not respond within the period stated in it, is ineligible under these rules — including under the employee and family exclusion — or cannot satisfy its conditions, passes the offer to the next ranked eligible participant. The ranking itself is published as it stands.

   The number of offers does not change: two offers are made, passing down the ranking until two are accepted or the ranking is exhausted.

   internship.decline-passes-down

7. 12.7

   An internship is a fixed-term placement. It is not a guarantee, promise or implication of permanent employment, of any extension, or of any particular pay, project or title beyond what the signed agreement states.

   internship.not-permanent

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13 Recordings, data and how long they are kept

Proctoring earns its place here or becomes a liability. What follows is the whole of it: what is captured, why, who can see it, how long it survives, and how to get it deleted.

1. 13.1

   Six categories are held: your registration details; an image of the identity document shown at check-in; the webcam video and microphone audio of the sitting; the screen capture of the sitting; the telemetry described in the conduct section; and your submitted work and its score. The verification call, where one happens, is held with the sitting recordings.

   data.categories

2. 13.2

   The identity image, the video, the audio, the screen capture and the telemetry are held for one purpose: to establish that the person who registered sat the paper unaided, and to be able to answer a challenge to that finding — including a challenge from the participant.

   They are not used to assess you. Nobody is ranked on how they looked at the camera.

   data.purpose-integrity

3. 13.3

   Registration details, submitted work and scores are held to run the contest, publish a ranking, make and administer the offers, and answer appeals about a score.

   data.purpose-result

4. 13.4

   The identity-document image is deleted 7 days after the sitting. It has done its work by then.

   data.retention-id

5. 13.5

   Video, audio and screen recordings are kept for 30 days after results are published for participants who are not shortlisted; for 180 days for those who are shortlisted; and for 365 days for anyone who receives an offer. They are then deleted.

   The gradient is deliberate: the further you go, the longer the result has to remain defensible, and the shorter the period for everyone whose recording nobody will ever need.

   data.retention-media

6. 13.6

   Telemetry, submitted work, scores and registration details are kept for 730 days, so that a ranking can be re-checked and a similarity comparison can be made against a later cohort. Registration details are kept longer only where you asked to hear about future events, in which case they are kept until you ask us to stop.

   data.retention-telemetry

7. 13.7

   None of it is sold, rented, licensed, or shared with any advertiser, data broker or recruiter outside the company.

   data.no-sale

8. 13.8

   None of it is used to train, fine-tune, evaluate or improve any model, including our own DigitOracle. Recordings of people sitting an examination are not training material and are not treated as any.

   data.no-training

9. 13.9

   Recordings and telemetry are accessible only to named reviewers who need them for a specific flag, offer or appeal. Access is logged, and the log names who opened what and when.

   data.access-controlled

10. 13.10

    The test and proctoring platforms process this material on the company’s instructions as its processors, under contract, and may not use it for their own purposes. The company remains answerable for it either way.

    The platforms are named to every registrant before the link is issued, together with where the material is processed.

    data.processor

11. 13.11

    You may ask for a copy of what is held about you, or for a correction, by writing to the contact address with your reference code. Your own recordings and your own breakdown are yours to see; another participant’s are not.

    data.access-request

12. 13.12▲ Disqualifying

    You may ask for your recordings to be deleted at any time. A deletion request made before results are published ends your participation, because a result that cannot be defended cannot be issued.

    Not a penalty — an arithmetic consequence. If the evidence that you sat the paper unaided is gone, we cannot rank you and cannot answer anybody who questions the ranking.

    data.deletion-before-results

13. 13.13

    A participant who does not want to be recorded may withdraw at any time before the window opens, with no consequence of any kind: no bar, no record, no effect on any future entry. Say so in a message and it is done.

    Consent to recording is mandatory to sit the paper, so this is the honest alternative and it is offered plainly rather than buried.

    data.withdraw-before-window

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14 Appeals, amendments and contact

1. 14.1

   An appeal must be lodged within 72 hours of results being published to you, or of a decision being notified to you, whichever is later. Nothing is reopened after that.

   appeals.window

2. 14.2

   Appeals go to the contact address below, with your reference code in the subject line. An appeal sent anywhere else, or by any other channel, is not an appeal.

   appeals.where

3. 14.3

   Include your reference code, the identifier of the clause you say was misapplied, what you say happened, and anything you want considered. An appeal that names no clause is answered but cannot be adjudicated.

   This is why every clause here has an identifier. Cite it.

   appeals.contents

4. 14.4

   An appeal is decided by a reviewer who did not take the original decision, on the evidence, the log and your response.

   appeals.decider

5. 14.5

   You will have a reasoned answer within 10 working days, naming the clause relied on and the outcome.

   appeals.reply

6. 14.6

   The decision on an appeal is final, and there is no further internal stage. Nothing in this clause affects any right you have under applicable law.

   appeals.final

7. 14.7

   The following are not grounds for appeal: the question order or variant you received; the failure of your own device, power or connection; disliking the published weighting or marking scheme; and the outcome alone, unaccompanied by anything said to be wrong with it.

   What is deliberately not on this list: what caused a recorded event. The clause below says why.

   appeals.not-grounds

8. 14.8

   What caused a recorded event is always something you may put in a response or an appeal, and it is always read. It cannot change the count, because the count is what the log says. It can change which step of the ladder is applied, and it can set a finding aside altogether. An event you did not intend is therefore worth explaining and is never dismissed unheard.

   The focus section says plainly that the platform records the event and not the intention. Recording events that way and then refusing to hear the intention would leave the one thing a wrongly-stopped participant has to say with nowhere to go, and that is not a rule set anybody should be asked to sit under.

   appeals.cause-is-heard

9. 14.9

   These rules may be amended before the contest. Every registrant is notified of a material amendment at their registered email address, and the amended version is published on the rules page.

   amend.notice

10. 14.10

    Every copy of these rules carries a version and an effective date. Quote both when you cite a clause, and check that the copy you are reading is the one issued for this contest.

    amend.version

11. 14.11

    An amendment applies from its effective date onward. It does not undo anything already earned, does not revive anything already forfeited, and is never applied retrospectively to a sitting that has already happened.

    amend.no-retroactive

12. 14.12

    Questions about these rules, accommodations, declarations, accessibility, data requests and appeals all go to the careers address published with this contest, quoting your reference code.

    One address, so that nothing is lost between two. The address is careers@digitalabbot.io.

    contact.queries

13. 14.13

    The contest is run by DigitAlchemy Tech Limited, trading as Digital Abbot, ADGM Registration No. 35004. The rules live at /hackathon-rules and registration at /hackathon-registration on digitalabbot.io.

    contact.company

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