Welcome to the MidCamp Hackathon! This event is the kickoff to our collaborative journey, feeding into the Unconference and culminating in Contrib Day.
This year's theme
Drupal Canvas and Drupal AI — the newest pieces of Drupal. Bring a problem one of these could solve, a pattern you want to prototype, or just your curiosity. Teams will form around ideas that touch either (or both) of these initiatives.
Or if you want to work on the big burning issue you've always want to do, let's hear it. Now's the time to gather help and get it started.
How it runs
The Hackathon is designed to have three phases. The exercises sequence from "who is in the room" to "what should we build" to "is this idea ready to ship."
1. Skills Market
Register for the event by sharing what skills you are offering. Every participant will create a post-it that has two things:
- What I can do — Drupal backend, frontend, AI tooling, design, content strategy, anything.
- What I want to learn or try.
We'll put the post-its on the Skills Market board. Later when teams need help, they can come to the board to see who is available to push an idea forward. Everyone is needed, technical and non-technical, you never know when a skill can help push an idea to be better.
2. Ideation
Once we know who is in the room, we surface problems and generate ideas together. We use short, facilitated exercises rather than unstructured "let's brainstorm":
- Pain-Point Speed Round — Surface real friction from your Drupal work. Maybe you or someone else can fix it today.
- All sources welcome — bring any tool that helps you think, whether that's a favorite AI, a burning issue you've been carrying, or just a wish to make what you already do 20% cooler. Put it on a post-it.
- Crazy 8s — eight ideas in eight minutes, to get past the obvious. Groups can have first pick on their ideas and share the rest to an Inspiration pool for others to take on.
- Lightning Pitches — People can give a quick “elevator pitch” for what they want to tackle and others can group up around them to solve it.
Quantity first. Judgment comes later.
3. Grooming
Before anyone writes code, we pressure-test the shortlist:
- NUF Test — score each idea on Novel, Useful, Feasible.
- Pre-Mortem — "It is demo time and we failed. Why?"
- Smallest Demoable Slice — what is the smallest version that is still a real project? Try to shoot for a target that can be reached to demonstrate what you're thinking of.
Teams form around the survivors via an Idea Market, then build.
Who should come
- Drupal developers curious about Canvas or AI.
- Designers, content strategists, and site builders — Canvas in particular wants your eyes.
- Anyone using AI coding tools in their day-to-day, or wanting to start.
- First-time hackathon attendees — the Skills Market is designed for you.
What to bring
- A laptop with a working local Drupal (DDEV is easiest).
- One friction point from your own work — or none, we will generate one.
- Optional: any AI coding tool you already use.
Stay in the Loop
- Join us on MidCamp Slack to chat and get updates.
- Follow us on Bluesky and Mastodon for announcements and news.
- Subscribe to our newsletter for updates on the venue, travel options, social events, and speaker announcements.