Overview
Life After Code is the GitLab Transcend Hackathon, hosted on Devpost. The challenge asks participants to build agents and flows that take over the rest of the DevSecOps lifecycle after code has been written. Covered areas include code review, security scanning, testing, compliance, deployment, monitoring, and more. Participants choose how much control to hand over to their automation and then show how far that automation can go. The event is online and has 2,632 participants listed on the page.
Who should attend
Participants must be above the legal age of majority in their country of residence. Residents of Brazil, China, Crimea, Cuba, the Donetsk People's Republic, Iran, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the Luhansk People's Republic, Quebec, Russia, and the Syrian Arab Republic are excluded from participation according to the page.
Goals
The hackathon encourages developers to use agents, flows, triggers, and MCP servers from the GitLab Duo Agent Platform. The organizers want participants to measure how much of their software development lifecycle they can automate. Winners receive cash prizes, and projects are presented to judges from GitLab, Google, and Anthropic.
Paths
Each participant picks one of two paths.
- Path A: Start Fresh requires building a new AI-powered project on GitLab that demonstrates agentic automation of the post-code lifecycle. The app, CI/CD pipeline, and automation must be created from scratch for this hackathon. Existing projects are not allowed. Deployment is optional.
- Path B: Bring Your Own requires taking an existing MIT-licensed open-source project, which can be the participant's own project or a fork. The project must be imported into GitLab, extended with AI-powered post-code automation, and deployed. The automation and deployment must be done on or after October 5.
Levels of autonomy
Every project must fit one of three autonomy levels.
- Assisted: Agents and flows propose actions and wait for approval before proceeding at each stage.
- Supervised: Agents run a multi-step workflow on their own and the participant approves the final outcome rather than each step.
- Hands-off: The participant sets an intent, and the system runs a full loop from code to production without a human in the middle.
The page gives examples such as an agent reviewing a merge request, flagging a vulnerability, and proposing a fix, or an agent handling an issue from review through production deployment and a summary post.
Lifecycle coverage
The challenge is organized around nine GitLab DevSecOps stages: plan, create, verify, package, secure, release, configure, monitor, and govern. Participants do not need to use every feature within a stage, and touching a stage counts toward coverage.
Prizes
The total prize pool is $45,000 in cash. Each path has Best Assisted Agent ($4,000), Best Supervised Agent ($4,000), and Best Hands-off Agent ($5,000) awards. Two Most Stages Covered awards of $5,000 are given, one from each path. There is also a Most Environmentally Impactful prize of $5,000, which requires opting in on the submission form and quantifying sustainability gains using SCI (Software Carbon Intensity) frameworks. A Most Creative prize of $4,000 is also offered.
Google Cloud bonus
Deploying on Google Cloud makes a project eligible for up to 0.2 bonus points, added once after judging. The Google Cloud deployment code must be in the public repository, and a public live project link must be provided. The highest possible final score is 5.2.
Requirements and submission
Each submission must include the project, a text description of the problem solved and how GitLab automates the post-code lifecycle, a public GitLab repository with source code and run instructions, and an MIT License visible in the repository's About section. The repository must show visible CI/CD pipeline history. A demo video under three minutes must be uploaded publicly to YouTube and must avoid third-party trademarks and copyrighted music. Path B submissions also need an explanation of changes made during the submission period, a URL to the deployed project that stays live until winners are announced around November 16, and a URL to the original MIT-licensed project.
Schedule
The hackathon deadline is October 27, 2026 at 1:00pm UTC. A live Build Session with Missy Davies and Dennis Meister is scheduled for October 9 at 10am ET, showing GitLab Duo Agent Platform automating the post-code workflow. The page also lists a quickstart and contributor onboarding as early steps.
Judging criteria
Judges score technological implementation, design, potential impact, innovation, and presentation. They look for a non-trivial working implementation, a complete end-to-end workflow, a credible problem and audience, a creative use of agentic automation, and a demo video that clearly shows the automation running.
Judges
The judging panel includes Bill Staples, Missy Davies, Mattias Michaux, Dennis Meister, Lee Tickett from GitLab, Rajesh Agadi from Google, Luca Chun Lun Lit, Alan Zhang, and Jackson Dolphin.
FAQ
Is Google Cloud required? No. Google Cloud is optional for both paths, and it only provides a bonus.
Do I need to deploy? Deployment is optional for Path A and required for Path B.
Where can I ask questions? The page directs questions to the hackathon manager by email.
