2026-04-23
The Vibe Coding Challenge at Drupal Developer Days Athens 2026
Four developers, 90 minutes, real medals, and a prize. 🏆 The first Vibe Coding Challenge at DDD Athens.
On April 23rd, during Drupal Developer Days Athens 2026, we ran the first Official Vibe Coding Challenge. Four developers. Ninety minutes. An AI budget as prize. Real medals.
The format
Four participants gathered in Room 6 with one brief: build something useful for the Drupal community using AI. The clock was running.
- 14:00 to 14:30: explanation of the challenges and scoring criteria
- 14:30 to 16:00: coding time
- 16:00 to 17:00: presentations (5 minutes per proposal + 5 minutes for questions)
- 17:20: prize and medal ceremony on the main stage
How they were scored
| Criterion | Points |
|---|---|
| Technical quality | 25 |
| Open source and contribution | 20 |
| Business value | 20 |
| Creativity and design | 20 |
| AI usage | 15 |
| Total | 100 |
The challenges
Participants could pick one of the suggested starting points or go their own way entirely:
- Auto Module Fixer: automatically detect and fix common Drupal module issues
- D7 to D11 Migration Assistant: AI-assisted tooling to simplify the migration path
- Drupal Issue Updates in Messenger: get Drupal.org issue queue updates delivered to your messaging app
- Drupal Dev Days / DrupalCamp Recipe: a reusable Drupal recipe for event sites
- Online BOF Planner: a digital version of the classic paper BOF planner
- Attendee Linker: connect DrupalCon attendees based on shared interests or sessions
The prizes
Real medals. And an AI budget for the winners to put to use.
A big thank you to Dan Lemon and Amazee for generously providing the AI budget and the prizes that made this competition possible. It means a lot to have partners who believe in the next generation of Drupal developers.
The results
Based on the scores across technical quality, AI usage, open source contribution, business value, and creativity:
🥇 Bill Seremetis: Talos
A system that parses large log files fast and evaluates whether you are being targeted or scraped by botnets. External API validation of suspicious IPs, with alerting. Security tooling that actually scales.
🥈 Tim: Drupal Agency Radar
See which agencies claim to be Drupal contributors, and check what their actual contribution numbers look like. Transparency for the community about who is really giving back.
🥉 Dipak: Android app for maintainers
A mobile app for Drupal maintainers to get updates on the issues they follow. On holiday? Get a diff of what changed while you were away. Stay in the loop without being glued to your laptop.
Honorable mentions
Anand: IssueDistiller
Get notifications for Drupal.org issues you follow, delivered to Telegram or wherever you prefer. Your issue queue, following you instead of the other way around.
Marios: DrupalWatch
Watch Drupal modules and issues and get a notification when something changes. For maintainers and contributors who want to stay on top of their projects without living in the issue queue.
Nico: Drupal Icebreaker
An app to help Drupal event attendees connect with each other based on shared interests and topics. Break the ice before the hallway track. Try it at icebreaker.drup.al.
Christian Wiedemann: Drupal CLI for AI
Expose Drupal CLI access to AI agents via a JSON schema. When an AI needs to consume or control Drupal from the command line, it now has a proper interface to do so. Exactly the kind of plumbing that makes autonomous Drupal possible.
Pictures
The ceremony
Video
The session was recorded and will be shared on a dedicated YouTube playlist with more vibe coding videos.
