We're excited to announce our newest challenge with Xano!
Running through December 14, the Xano AI-Powered Backend Challenge invites you to harness the power of AI to build production-ready backends that are scalable, secure, and maintainable.
Whether you're exploring AI-assisted development, building public APIs, or creating full-stack applications, this challenge is the perfect opportunity to showcase how human expertise transforms AI-generated code into production-ready backends.
We hope you give it a try!
Our Prompts
Full-Stack, AI-First Application
Build a full-stack application where AI jumpstarts your backend development:
Generate your backend using AI within VS Code, Cursor, Windsurf, or another compatible IDE with the XanoScript extension
Refine and enhance the AI-generated backend in Xano to make it production-ready
Connect a frontend of your choice (we recommend low-code tools like Lovable or WeWeb, but any frontend framework works!)
The goal? Show us how you take AI-generated backend code and transform it into something scalable, secure, and maintainable through thoughtful human refinement.
Use promo code DEVCHALLENGE-XANO to unlock 1 month free of Xano's Starter plan
Give your workspace a name and create your project!
Familiarize yourself with the UI: the database tab, the API tab, and the AI tab!
Navigate to your instance settings panel: scroll to the bottom to select METADATA API & MCP Server.
Create a new access token, and be sure to copy it!
Inside VSCode or your favorite IDE, install the XanoScript extension, and paste your access token to get started!
For both prompts, we want to see the AI-human collaboration process. Your submission should highlight:
The original AI prompt you used to generate your backend
How you refactored the code to be more scalable, secure, or maintainable
The specific value you gained from the AI response (even where it needed refinement)
All projects must be deployed and functional. If your app requires logging in, please provide testing credentials in your submission and/or instructions on how to best test your application for judges.
Get to Know Xano
Xano is an all-in-one backend platform that provides everything you need to build and ship apps and agents — including a managed data layer (Postgres and authentication), a full execution layer for business logic and automation (runtime, workflows, and background jobs), a connectivity and operations layer (API and MCP gateways, integrations, and monitoring), and native support for agent reasoning and LLM integrations. Build and deploy production-grade software — visually, with code, or through AI — and launch in minutes. Connect to any frontend, deploy with one click, and scale to millions of users. Trusted by 100,000+ builders and engineers.
One of the best things about DEV is seeing how differently everyone approaches the same idea. Whether this is your first backend build or your tenth, your perspective adds so much value. Can't wait to see what gets built!
Top comments (5)
One of the best things about DEV is seeing how differently everyone approaches the same idea. Whether this is your first backend build or your tenth, your perspective adds so much value. Can't wait to see what gets built!
Good luck everyone!
This should be an interesting one. Good luck everyone!
Can't wait to see what people build!
Best of luck everyone