19 days ago
Two new resources + how to actually win over the judges 🛠️
Hey builders,
We have two new resources to add to your list, plus some straight-talk on what judges are scoring and how to make your submission land.
📚 Two new Slack Dev Huddles
The Slack Developers team is running two live huddles that line up directly with what you're building:
- Slack Dev Huddles Ep05 — Slack MCP & RTS API → Watch
Covers two of the three core technologies for this hackathon: MCP server integration and the Real-Time Search API. If you're wiring external tools and data into your agent, or surfacing live workspace context, this is the one to catch. - Slack Dev Huddles Ep06 — Slack Marketplace → June 23rd at 11am PT → Attend
Walks through getting an app onto the Slack Marketplace — essential viewing if you're in the Slack Agent for Organizations track, where Marketplace submission before the deadline is part of the requirement.
🎯 What the judges are actually scoring
No mystery here — these four criteria are equally weighted. Build and pitch with all four in mind:
Technological Implementation — Does the project demonstrate quality software development? Does the project leverage at least one of these three technologies: Slack AI capabilities, MCP server integration, or real-time search API? How is the quality of the code?
Design — Is the user experience and design of the project well thought out? Is there a balanced blend of frontend and backend in the software?
Potential Impact — How big of an impact could the project have on the Slack community? How big of an impact could it have beyond the target community?
Quality of the Idea — How creative and unique is the project? Does the concept exist already? If so, how much does the project improve on it?
Get the basics right: pick a track, hit at least one of the three required technologies, include your architecture diagram, and grant sandbox test access to slackhack@salesforce.com and testing@devpost.com.
🎬 Your demo video carries the project
The video "should be less than three (3) minutes" and judges "are not required to watch beyond 3 minutes" — so front-load your best stuff. It "should include footage that shows the Project functioning." Talk over a real, working demo, not a slideshow of promises.
A few specifics:
- Tell judges what it is, what it does, who it's for, and why it's cool — be specific. "An MCP-backed Slack agent that pulls on-call status from PagerDuty and posts a triage summary to the incident channel" beats "an AI assistant for teams" every time. Name the workflow you're killing.
- Sound excited. You built this thing — let that show! Energy is contagious and judges feel it.
- Using AI for the voice-over is totally fine if you're not comfortable narrating yourself. Write a tight script, generate clean narration, sync it to your screen capture. No shame in it.
✍️ Where to keep AI out of it
- Don't let AI name your project. Everyone's prompting the same models — you'll end up as the fourth "SlackSage" in the gallery. Name it yourself.
- Don't let AI write your description. This is the one place your voice has to come through. Judges read hundreds of submissions; the generic-AI-prose ones blur together. Write it like you're telling a teammate why you're proud of it.
🔧 A few more things that separate strong submissions
- Solve a real, specific workflow problem inside Slack instead of wrapping a generic chatbot in a Slack skin. Specificity reads as competence.
- Use your required tech where it's load-bearing, not bolted on. If your agent would work identically without the MCP server or RTS API, that's a tell — and it costs you on Technological Implementation.
- Make your architecture diagram earn its place. It's required, and it's a fast signal of how you think. Show the data flow, the integration points, where the AI/MCP/RTS piece actually sits. Upload it to the field on the submission form so it's east for judges to find, not buried.
- Submit early. You can keep editing until the deadline, and submitting ahead of time means Devpost's pre-deadline review can flag eligibility issues while you still have time to fix them.
- Start your submission form now, even half-finished. It always takes longer than you think to gather links, write the description, and upload the video.
Build something you're proud of — and good luck. 🚀