Zero Dependency | 72-Hour Hackathon

About the Hackathon: Zero Dependency 2026 is a 72-hour online hackathon built around one deceptively simple rule: your dependency manifest must be empty. No third-party runtime packages. No frameworks. No external libraries — just your language's standard library and your engineering skills. The challenge is to build something genuinely useful with nothing but what your language already provides. The goal isn't to prove that packages are bad; it's to prove that you understand what sits underneath them. Every submission must be a working, useful program that builds with a single command and runs without third-party runtime dependencies. You'll also document what packages you would normally use and how you replaced them with standard-library functionality. Stay Updated: All announcements, rule clarifications, cheat sheet releases, submission instructions, FAQs, and live support happen on the official Hackathon Raptors Discord. Important updates (including project submissions) are communicated exclusively through Discord. Discord Server Invite: Join the Hackathon Raptors Discord Why Participate: Modern software hides enormous complexity behind dependency trees. Zero Dependency challenges you to strip that away and understand the fundamentals. Participants will get to: Build real software from first principles. Deepen their understanding of their language's standard library. Practice software engineering without frameworks or third-party packages. Work with networking, parsing, storage, security, algorithms, or developer tooling. Demonstrate technical depth and engineering judgment. Learn what libraries actually provide under the hood. Build a project that is easy to inspect, reproduce, and understand. AI coding assistants are allowed and expected. The challenge is not whether AI helped — it's whether you can ship, explain, test, and defend what was built. Eligibility: Zero Dependency is open to: Students. Software developers. Engineers. Researchers. Professionals. Open-source contributors. Anyone interested in software engineering, from any country. Team Size: 1–4 members. Solo participation is allowed. Teams of 2–3 are recommended. Cross-college teams are allowed. Cross-disciplinary teams are allowed. Event Format: The hackathon runs entirely online for 72 hours. Participants select one of six tracks and build a working project using only their language's standard library. During the event, teams are expected to: Choose a track and define a real problem. Design and implement the solution using standard-library functionality. Test the implementation against edge cases. Document technical decisions and trade-offs. Verify that the final artifact has zero third-party runtime dependencies. Prepare a working demo. Submit the required project documentation and dependency proof. Tracks: Participants choose one of six tracks: Track A — Developer Tools & CLI: Linters, formatters, task runners, Git utilities, file utilities, and CLI automation tools. Projects should have a clean CLI with sensible arguments, exit codes, and stdout/stderr behavior. Track B — Parsers & Data Formats: JSON/CSV/Markdown/config parsers, template engines, regex engines, and serializers. Edge cases, correctness, useful errors, nesting, escaping, and malformed-input handling matter. Track C — Web & Network: HTTP servers, routers, clients, static-site servers, DNS utilities, raw TCP apps, and network diagnostics. Projects should handle concurrent connections and real clients or servers. Track D — Data & Storage: Key-value stores, embedded databases, caches, log-structured stores, and search indexes. Projects should demonstrate persistence, retrieval, durability/consistency decisions, and crash or concurrent-access handling. Track E — Security & Crypto Utilities: Password managers, TOTP/2FA generators, file encryption, hashing utilities, and secrets scanners. Do not implement your own crypto algorithms — compose trusted standard-library primitives and document your threat model. Track F — Open / Wildcard: Games, visualizers, interpreters, compression tools, schedulers, and simulations. Your README must explain why the project belongs here and how you achieved zero dependencies. What Counts as Zero Dependency: The core rule is zero third-party runtime dependencies — the final project must use only the standard library of the chosen language. JavaScript / TypeScript: Node.js, Deno, or Bun built-ins only. No npm runtime packages. Python: Standard library only. No pip runtime dependencies. Go: Standard library only. No require block in go.mod. Rust: Standard library only. Cargo.toml must have an empty [dependencies] section. C / C++: libc and POSIX only. No third-party libraries. Java / Kotlin / C#: Platform standard library only. No Maven/NuGet runtime dependencies. AI Tools: AI coding assistants are allowed — including Claude Code, Cursor, Aider, GitHub Copilot, local AI models, and others. AI usage itself is not scored. We score whether the final implementation works, whether it follows the zero-dependency constraint, and whether the team can explain and defend the code. What You Need to Submit: Each team must submit: Public GitHub repository. Working implementation. One-command build instructions. Empty dependency manifest. Dependency proof. README.md. STDLIB.md. Tests. 5-minute demo video. Your STDLIB.md should document the packages you would normally have used and the standard-library functionality you used instead — for example, Normally: requests → Instead: Python urllib + http.client. Judging Criteria: Projects will be evaluated on: Functionality & Usefulness — 35%: Does it work, solve a real problem, and build and run easily? Zero-Dependency Craft — 30%: How effectively were third-party packages replaced with standard-library functionality? Code Quality & Idiom — 25%: Is the implementation idiomatic, maintainable, readable, and well structured? Innovation — 10%: Does it show an unexpectedly capable use of the standard library? Bonus Challenges: Single File (+5): Build the entire project as one genuinely useful source file. Reproducible Build (+5): Build the artifact twice with byte-identical outputs, and publish both hashes. Package Killer (+3): Reimplement a package people actually use and document the replacement. STDLIB Log (+3): Document at least 10 meaningful standard-library-for-package substitutions in STDLIB.md. Rules: Teams must contain 1–4 members. All project code must be written during the official 72-hour hackathon. Planning, research, documentation reading, and AI prompt preparation are allowed beforehand. No project code may be committed before kickoff. The final artifact must have zero third-party runtime dependencies. The project must build using a single documented command. Third-party source code cannot be copied in to fake an empty manifest. The submitted GitHub repository must be public at submission time. The project must target one of the six official tracks. Open-source licensing requirements must be respected. AI coding assistants are allowed. Any permitted development-only dependency must be disclosed in STDLIB.md. The project must be genuinely useful — hello-world or trivial implementations will not score well. About Hackathon Raptors: Hackathon Raptors is a Community Interest Company that runs online hackathons for working engineers and developers. 40+ events run. 2,500+ Discord members. 1,500+ builders. 300+ projects shipped. Participants from 30+ countries. Builders from companies including Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, NVIDIA, and Tesla have participated in Hackathon Raptors events.