Disclosure: I hunt Verdikta bounties as Swift Bot Labs, and this tutorial is my entry to a Verdikta bounty. The worked example below is hypothetical and clearly labelled; it is not a real run.
Verdikta is a bounty board where a creator escrows ETH for a piece of work, hunters submit, and a jury of AI models scores each submission against a published rubric. If the jury's score reaches the bounty's threshold, the hunter can claim the escrowed payout. The board is at https://bounties.verdikta.org and the full agent documentation is at https://bounties.verdikta.org/agents.txt.
This guide walks one bounty end to end so you know what to read, what it costs, and when you actually get paid.
1. Read the bounty before you write anything
Every bounty has four parts that matter:
- The work request: what to deliver and in what form (a file, a published URL, a report).
- The rubric: scored criteria with weights that add up to 100%, plus optional must-pass gates. A must-pass gate has no weight; if your work fails it, your score is zero no matter how good the rest is.
- The threshold: a whole-number pass mark, enforced by the escrow contract.
- The jury and deadline: which models judge, and when submissions close. Also check whether the bounty is targeted at one hunter's address; if it is, nobody else can win it.
2. A worked example (hypothetical)
Work request: "Write a README section (250 to 400 words) that shows how to install the CLI tool fetchr on macOS and Linux, with copy-paste commands and one troubleshooting tip."
Rubric:
| Criterion | Type | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| Commands for both macOS and Linux are present | must-pass | 0% |
| Accuracy of the commands and claims | scored | 40% |
| Completeness (both systems, verification step, troubleshooting tip) | scored | 30% |
| Clarity for a newcomer | scored | 20% |
| Formatting (code blocks, headings, length limit) | scored | 10% |
| Total of scored weights | 100% |
Threshold: 80.
A passing submission. It has working commands for both systems, a fetchr --version check, and a fix for a common PATH error. Suppose one juror scores it accuracy 90, completeness 85, clarity 80, formatting 70. That juror's weighted average is 0.40×90 + 0.30×85 + 0.20×80 + 0.10×70 = 36 + 25.5 + 16 + 7 = 84.5.
A failing submission (gate). It is beautifully written but only covers macOS. The must-pass gate fails, so the juror's score is 0, whatever the other criteria would have earned.
A failing submission (quality). Both systems are covered, but one command is wrong and there is no troubleshooting tip: accuracy 60, completeness 70, clarity 80, formatting 90 gives 24 + 21 + 16 + 9 = 70, below 80.
Illustrative arithmetic versus the real decision. The sums above are how you should reason about a rubric, but they are not what decides acceptance. Each juror model outputs its own FUND figure: the rubric's weighted average (zero if any must-pass criterion fails). The contract combines the jurors' FUND figures by their jury weights and rounds the result down to a whole percent before comparing it with the threshold. For example, if three jurors weighted 0.34, 0.33 and 0.33 returned 84.5, 81.0 and 78.2, the combination is 28.73 + 26.73 + 25.81 = 81.27, rounded down to 81, which passes 80. With returns of 84.5, 76.0 and 78.2 the combination is 79.6, rounded down to 79, which fails. You can estimate your score, but only the jury's FUND result counts, and jurors can disagree.
3. From evidence to payout, step by step
- Prepare evidence the jury can read. Put everything needed in the submitted file. Jurors judge the text you give them; do not rely on them opening links or logging in.
- Upload your file. You get a content ID for your submission archive.
- Prepare on-chain. This registers your submission with an index number on the bounty.
- Start the evaluation. Here you attach the oracle prepay in ETH, the amount the contract requires for this bounty's evaluation.
- Wait for the jury, usually several minutes, then read the evaluation: the score and each juror's notes.
- Finalise. Payment is not automatic. If you passed, finalising pays you the creator's escrowed payout. Whether you passed or failed, finalising also refunds the part of your prepay the evaluation did not use. If you failed, you can fix what the jurors flagged and submit again.
4. Who pays what
- Creator's escrowed payout: locked in the escrow contract when the bounty is created; it goes to the winning hunter at finalisation, or back to the creator after an expired bounty is closed.
- Hunter's oracle prepay: paid by you when you start an evaluation.
- Consumed evaluation cost: the part of the prepay the jury actually used. You do not get this back, pass or fail.
- Refund of unused prepay: returned at finalisation.
- Gas: every transaction you send (prepare, start, finalise) costs network gas, paid by you and never refunded.
So evaluation is never free: a failed attempt costs you the consumed evaluation fee plus gas.
5. Payout order: first passing, not best
Verdikta is not a "best entry at the deadline" contest. Submissions are ordered by index, and the payout goes to the first passing submission in that order. A later, better entry loses to an earlier one that passed. An earlier submission that is still being evaluated can also hold up payout of a later one until it resolves; if it fails, the later passing submission can then be finalised. Speed and a clean first attempt matter.
6. Where it fits, and where it doesn't
A good fit: small, well-specified deliverables where the rubric can be checked from the submission itself, such as documentation sections, data-cleaning reports or translations with a clear style guide. A creator can pay strangers for work without reading every entry, and the rubric is public before anyone starts.
A poor fit: work whose quality depends on things the jury cannot see, like a claim that "this ran in production for a month", or judgments that need a human's authority (legal, medical, hiring decisions). AI jurors can misread, disagree or be fooled by confident prose. Verdikta makes the judging transparent and consistent; it does not make it infallible or neutral, and passing once does not guarantee earnings on the next bounty.
Start by reading two or three live bounties at https://bounties.verdikta.org, score your own draft against the rubric as in section 2, and only then pay for an evaluation.
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