Requirements and Guidelines
Working as a Team
Picking an idea
Support
Mentors
Core program
Requirements
Every project must meet all of the following:
Application
- Written in JavaScript (Node.js or in the browser).
- Uses an external data source: a public API or an external dataset (e.g from Kaggle).
- Persists data using SQLite or file-based storage (JSON/CSV).
Code quality
- At least 20 unit tests.
- A CI pipeline using GitHub Actions that runs linter and unit tests on every pull request.
- Meaningful error handling. The app should not crash on bad input.
Collaboration
- Use Git for code collaboration.
- All code changes go through pull requests. Do not push changes directly on main.
- Write a README that explains: what the app does, how to install and run it, and screenshots (if applicable).
Bonus (not required, but encouraged)
- Connect an LLM to your application (via API).
- Deploy your app to a free platform (e.g. Render).
AI Guidelines
Use AI as a senior developer mentor, not as a team member.
This means:
- Ask AI to explain concepts you don't understand, suggest approaches to a problem, or review your code for issues.
- Don't ask AI to write features for you. If you paste a requirement and copy-paste the output, you are skipping the learning.
In addition:
- If AI helped you solve a tricky problem, mention it in your PR description. This is normal and professional - hiding it is not.
- You are allowed to generate HTML/CSS/JS web interface and you must clearly mention it on the top of the file.
- Be prepared to explain the decisions your team made and how the main parts of your application work during the interview..
The HackYourFuture curriculum is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
*https://hackyourfuture.net/*
Built with ❤️ by the HackYourFuture community · Thank you, contributors
Found a mistake or have a suggestion? Let us know in the feedback form.