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Pooja Bhavani
Pooja Bhavani

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The Agent Harness Hackathon is Coming (Aug 22–30) Build Secure AI Agents and Win an NVIDIA DGX Spark!

#ai #hackathon #opensource #productivity

If you have been wanting to build autonomous AI agents that can actually act instead of just chat, this hybrid, 9-day hackathon running from August 22–30, 2026 is the perfect opportunity to dive in.

Hosted by WeMakeDevs and sponsored by TrueFoundry, the challenge is to build secure, robust agents using TrueForge TrueFoundry's open-source agent harness.

What makes an "Agent" different from a Chatbot?

A standard chatbot can only answer questions. An actual agent must be able to securely query databases, run scripts, and execute complex tasks. TrueForge acts as the runtime layer that handles the hard parts of agent communication:

  • 🔌 Tool Connections: Reach real databases, APIs, and GitHub via Model Context Protocol (MCP).
  • 🛡️ Safe Code Execution: Execute agent-written code safely in an isolated sandbox.
  • ⏸️ Human-in-the-Loop Control: Pause to ask for human approval before taking any sensitive or irreversible actions.

The Stakes: $10,000 in Prizes! 🏆

There are two judged tracks and multiple global prizes open to all participants:

  1. Grand Prize (Double-O Track): An NVIDIA DGX Spark personal AI supercomputer (valued at $5,000) for the Best Use of TrueForge.
  2. Q Branch Track (Presented by Qodo): An M4 Pro Mac Mini for the team with the Best Code Quality (using Qodo for PR reviews is required).
  3. Best Blog Post: A Keychron Keyboard for the best write-up of your build journey published anywhere (like here on dev.to!).
  4. GitHub Draw: Simply star the TrueForge repository to enter a random draw for a Logitech MX Master 3 mouse.

🖥️ NVIDIA DGX Spark worth $5,000
💻 Apple Mac Mini
⌨️ Keychron Keyboard
🖱️ Logitech MX Master 3
🎁 Swag for top social posts

The hackathon is completely free to enter, and you can build solo or in a team of up to four.

👉 Secure your local AI handle first!

While checking out the hackathon, you can claim your own permanent, unique developer handle on local.ai by signing in securely via Hugging Face. This gives you instant access to community-driven, independent local-AI benchmarks and live model performance data the perfect way to figure out exactly which open-source models will perform best on your local hardware when building your agent on TrueForge.

Hackathon details: https://www.wemakedevs.org/hackathons/trueforge
Claim your unique handle using my referral link:
🔗 Claim your Local AI username before it's taken using this link: https://local.ai/pooja-bhavani/invite

Are you planning to participate or build an agent? What use cases (like automated DevOps or database analytics) are you most excited to see built? Let's discuss in the comments!

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