Rules inspired by the Static Showdown, Node Knockout, Rails Rumble, and Django Dash.

All applications must be built using Go. You can use other technologies as well (databases, front-end frameworks, etc.), but the core of what you write must be implemented in Go.

You've got 48 hours to complete your app, starting October 25 at 5pm PST (01:00 UTC on January 23). You can work on the concept of your project before the Gala begins by whiteboarding, conducting user interviews, or hand-drawing interfaces. However, you are not allowed to start writing code (or creating digital designs if your application requires graphic assets) until the competition begins. The one exception is if you've written a publicly available package that you'd like to use in your application. This special case is only allowed if the package does not provide the majority of the functionality for your application, as judged by the Gala organizers. If you're unsure about your situation, please reach out to us in advance.

The community will vote on their favorite applications, and then our expert judges will pick the winners. Judging will take place in two parts. First, there will be a community-voting stage, where everyone who competed will be able to vote on their favorite applications. Then, we will take the top 20 apps and give them to a group of expert judges to pick the top 3 winners. There will also be a few other prizes, including a crowd-favorite prize and a best solo app prize.

Apps will be judged based on usefulness, creativity, completeness, and how well they showcase Go's strengths. They will not be given specific scores for each of these attributes, but rather community and expert judges will be asked to use these criteria when picking their 5 favorite apps.

Teams are made up of 1-4 people and must register for the Gopher Gala before it begins. You can participate even if you know a sponsor or one of the judges - we will do our best to make sure no nepotism takes place.

Feel free to use packages that other people have written. We also encourage you to use third-party APIs and other web services. Code will be hosted in a Github repo which we create. We'll send you access information before the Gala begins, and you should push progress regularly throughout the competition.

You maintain ownership of all code you submit and can release it under an open source license or keep it private after the competition. There is no purchase necessary to enter the competition.

Applications that break any laws or violate the TOS of other websites will not be eligible for judging.