Join the Real-Time AI Agents Challenge powered by n8n and Bright Data: $5,000 in prizes across FIVE winners!

We're thrilled to partner with n8n and Bright Data to bring the community a brand new challenge!

Running through August 31, the Real-Time AI Agents Challenge powered by n8n and Bright Data invites you to build AI Agents using cutting-edge tools that are reshaping how AI agents access and process data.

✨ Join us on August 19 at 12pm ET for a special livestream right on the DEV homepage. Our co-founder @peter will be walking through the tools for this challenge with the n8n and Bright Data teams! For anyone that can't make it, we'll make sure to include the video in our resource section below. ✨

Building with n8n's automation platform combined with Bright Data's web data infrastructure truly puts you at the forefront of AI agent development. We have one prompt for this challenge with five chances to win, we hope you give it a try!

Our Prompt

Unstoppable Workflow

Build an unstoppable workflow with n8n that leverages Bright Data's n8n Verified Node to create something truly useful, complex, and creative. Your agent should demonstrate how adding real-time web data helps enhance what AI can accomplish.

Real-Time AI Agents Challenge Submission Template

Please review all challenge rules on the official challenge page before submitting.

Judging Criteria and Prizes

All submissions will be judged on the following:

• Utilization of Underlying Technology
• Accessibility and User Experience
• Business Value and Use Case
• Creativity and Usability
• Writing Quality (Clarity and Originality)

Five talented prompt winners will receive:

• $1,000 USD
• DEV++ Membership
• Exclusive DEV Badge

All Participants with a valid submission will receive a completion badge on their DEV profile.

How To Participate

In order to participate, you will need to publish a post using the submission template above.

All projects must:

• Use n8n's AI Agent node with Bright Data's verified node.
• Be publicly accessible via n8n's chat interface or another interaction layer, OR include a screen capture/demo video
• Inculde your n8n workflow JSON in a GitHub Gist or similar format (JSON file in the associated repo)

Bright Data Credits

Participants will receive $250 in credits upon signing up through our dedicated sign up link. If you're not seeing the credits in your account, try adding devto as a promo code. If additional credits are required, participants can email [e-mail] with the subject line "DEV Challenge - Credit Required," including the email they used to sign up and details about their use case.

Important Note: Use of Data Provided by Bright Data

If you receive data from Bright Data as part of this challenge, it is solely for use in your project submission. This data is not intended for reuse, resale, or redistribution at any point. Data provided for the competition will be accessed through an account created by Bright Data and credited using a dev.to promotion code. The promotion code will provide the necessary credits to complete your project as part of the challenge. Misuse of the data or credits may result in disqualification from the competition and/or revocation of access.

Please review our full rules, guidelines, and FAQ page before submitting so you understand our participation guidelines and official contest rules such as eligibility requirements.

Helpful Links

Get to know n8n and Bright Data by utilizing their docs and tutorials:

Get n8n: Start fast with a 14-day trial on cloud or with the free self-hosted community edition

• n8n Quick Start Tutorial:
• Developer Docs
• Bright Data Blog
• Bright Data Use Cases

• Bright Data's n8n Verified Node
  

• DEV Live Stream:
  

Important Dates

• August 13: AI Agents Challenge begins!
• August 31: Submissions due at 11:59 PM PDT
• September 11: Winners Announced

The era of intelligent, data-driven AI agents is here. We can't wait to see what you build!

Good luck and happy coding!

Comments

[Peter Kim Frank The DEV Team]

Huge fan and regular personal user of both n8n + Bright Data. Really excited to see what folks build.

[Nikoloz Turazashvili (@axrisi)]

Another opportunity to learn new technology. Don't miss out guys :)

[Aditya]

I'm also participating this time. I'm planning to make something wow.

[Evan Dickinson]

This is actually amazing. I know exactly what I’m going to build with this. A leads gen engine but also so much more. It actually fits nicely with my hustle project currently

[Arslan Sarwar]

Hi,

I'm based in Pakistan. I'm eligible to participate in this hackathon according to the official Dev rules. I'm unable to access Bright Data Website without VPN. Can you help me with this?

Thanks,
Muhammad Arslan

[Aditya]

Is there an issue while accessing it through vpn? If not, use vpn

[Jackson Kasi]

Is anyone able to assist with the Bright Data N8N Node for the web unlocker?
I don't get any response for the zone selection.
There is no result from the API

Access and extract data from a specific URL - Zone

[Meir]

Hi there,

Meir from Bright Data here 👋

Can you please make sure that :

• you have a valid bright data api key
• the zone web_unlocker1 actually exists in your account (if not, you should create it)
• since it is Amazon.in you might want to change the country accordingly, this might be a problem.

If you are still facing any issues after validating the above, please do let me know, I would love to help you solve it !

[Jackson Kasi]

Thank you for the clarification; I will check it out. Thanks again!

[Inforeole Automatisations IA]

Hi, Check this : n8n.io/workflows/8053-create-data-...

You will see how to use it and get responses :-)

[Jackson Kasi]

Thank you!

[Ashley Childress]

There's a broken link at the top for [official challenge page](dev.to/challenges/n8nbrightdata-20...). 🫠 Is this supposed to be the same as [rules, guidelines, and FAQ page](dev.to/challenges/brightdata-n8n-2...)?

The broken n8nbrightdata-2025-08-13 is also in the prefill template. 😉

[Jess Lee The DEV Team]

Thanks, fixed!

[Sebastian Van Rooyen]

@jess I'm just confirming if this needs to be the Bright Data node or can it use the Bright Data MCP Server as well?

[Jess Lee The DEV Team]

@sebastiandevelops confirmed that this need to be the Bright Data Verified Node, and not the Bright Data MCP Server.

[Abhi]

What's the difference between verified node and mcp server?

[Peter Kim Frank The DEV Team]

The Verified Node is used in the broader automation/workflow, whereas the MCP is specifically leveraged as a "Tool" by the agent itself. You'll still use the Verified Node to pass data forward to be used by the agent.

[Abhi]

@peter So, is it mandatory for the AI agent to use the verified node as a tool? Or the verified node can be used independently? Like scrape a website using brightdata node -> extract data using selectors -> send it to the agent for some AI task

[Nadine]

This can be done using Brightdata’s node on n8n. You create a scraper on Brightdata, then extract the data on n8n. I find you have to build your scraper independently, if you are building a custom scraper

[Abhi]

Yes, that's how I'm thinking of doing it, but since AI agent node is to be used -> should the bright data node should be a tool to the AI agent or it can be used independently?

[Nadine]

Oh I see yes it’s compulsory to use it but not specified how to use in in your workflow. So it depends on you how you use it? I need a trigger to start the process, so will start with an AI agent

[Nikoloz Turazashvili (@axrisi)]

I couldn't participate this time unfortunately. was busy working on my project. got funded by VC, news coming soon :)

Wish luck to all participants! Checking all projects now. you guys have built some crazy projects! Love it!

[Nikoloz Turazashvili (@axrisi)]

If anyone wondering about Claiming credits, this should help:

[Abhi]

If I need to use the scraping browser API, how do I call the custom browser API using the verified node? I currently don't see a way to do it using verified node.

is there a discord/slack channel to ask questions?

1. For this, I'll have to use code node though internally it uses brightdata scraping browser api. Is this valid for submission?
2. For the serp API too, I'll have to use the HTTP request node, the brightdata verified node itself recommends the same. Is this valid for submission?
3. How to use custom web scrapers built using the verified node in n8n?

I have created an issue for the same - github.com/n8nhackers/n8n-nodes-br...

[Abhi]

@jess Anyway to contact the hackathon organizer via discord/slack/email?

[Jess Lee The DEV Team]

@better-boy you can try the n8n discord: discord.gg/n8n