FAQ

Do I need to own a server?#

No. An old laptop, a Raspberry Pi, or the desktop nobody uses is enough see Self-hosting basics. You can also develop against a hosted service and ship a container someone else can run.

Can I work in a team?#

Ask in #ysws-CloudFALL before you plan around it. Hours are tracked per person, so a team submission needs to be clear about who did what.

Does installing an existing tool count?#

Not on its own somebody already built Jellyfin. Build something around the problem: the missing client, the migration tool, the glue between services, or a subscription nobody has replaced yet. Pick a project goes into this.

How much AI help can I use?#

At most 30% of the project, and you only get credit for hours you actually worked. It's checked. and No claude cannot share the hours it earned with you!

My hours are wrong / Hackatime stopped reporting#

Say so in the channel while it's recent. It's fixable then and effectively not fixable at submission time.

Can I submit something I started before the round?#

No. It has to be built new during this round, and you can't bring hours from a previous project or another YSWS. No double dipping

What if my project is hardware?#

That's in scope, as long as it's useful to a homelab or on-prem setup, even indirectly. Same rules: open source means schematics and firmware too, and the documentation has to be good enough that someone else could build it.

Does the round end at a specific time?#

The countdown in the header is the authority it reads the program directly. When it runs out, submissions close, note some execptions may be made so you should always ask before assuming it's over.

Something on this page is wrong#

Fix it. Every page here is a markdown file, and Suggest an edit at the bottom of a page opens a pull request against it. How to edit these docs.