Hackathon Flow

Hackathon Flow

A thin router, not a state machine: it infers phase from what's already on disk and points at the right skill. No progress file to maintain beyond the HACKATHON.md that /hackathon-kickoff already writes.

Prerequisites

None to run the router itself. The skills and commands it points to below aren't hard dependencies of this plugin; check /plugin before assuming one is installed, and fall back to the companion-install commands in README.md if it isn't.

How to use it

1. Check for HACKATHON.md in the repo root.
   • Missing → team hasn't done kickoff yet. Run /hackathon-kickoff first; nothing downstream should start before the rubric-aligned angle exists.
2. Check for a fleshed-out spec / feature list beyond the one-line angle.
   • Missing → hand off to superpowers' brainstorming skill to turn the angle into a concrete, buildable spec through dialogue, then its own writing-plans skill to break the spec into a task-by-task plan.
3. Check for an app (package.json, src/, etc.) with working core features.
   • Nothing yet → don't build features one at a time. Get a Feature Zero working first: one thin end-to-end slice, mock data is fine, deployed and demo-able, so there's always something to show no matter when time runs out. superpowers' executing-plans/subagent-driven-development builds this with full TDD rigor and per-task review; for a throwaway hackathon demo that ceremony often costs more time than it buys, so building straight off the plan without the enforced test loop is a reasonable, faster alternative. ui-ux-pro-max covers UI polish either way. Don't reach for a new UI dependency it already covers.
   • Exists but rough → gstack /design-review for a polish pass, gstack /qa to find and fix bugs with regression tests before anything else.
4. Check for a deck file (.pptx, deck.html, slides.md, etc.).
   • Missing → deck phase. Two branches:
     • Need a browser-native, zero-dependency deck with live-demo slots and an auto-generated narration script → beautiful-hackathon-slides.
     • Judges require an uploaded .pptx → the pptx skill (from anthropics/skills, or already bundled if your Claude environment ships it).
   • Exists but the narrative feels weak → run it through winning-pitch-deck (DePitch review mode) or dkorobtsov/pitch-deck's audit phase for a prioritized fix list, not a rewrite.
5. Check for a pitch script with per-speaker timing.
   • Missing and a deck/narration script exists → /pitch-timebox (this repo) slices the existing script across the team's time limit and roster rather than writing a new one from scratch.
   • Missing entirely → /pitch-timebox also works from just the HACKATHON.md angle + urgency hook if no deck exists yet.
6. Everything above exists → rehearsal. gstack /qa-only for a dry-run pass over the live app, plus the rehearsal checklist /pitch-timebox produced.

Reference

For situation → skill lookups outside this linear flow (e.g. "the judges changed the time limit an hour before pitching," "we need to re-pick roles"), see SCENARIOS.md at the repo root.