Resources

Here's everything you need to get from idea to submission: SDKs, simulators, sample code, documentation, and live office hours. Pick a track, grab a starter sample, and build.

Start here

These work for every track. Skim them first, then jump to your track below.

• Amazon Devices Builder Tools - an MCP server and Agent Skills that bring Amazon device knowledge into your AI coding assistant. Get crash analysis, performance profiling, documentation search, and guided workflows for app setup and optimization, right where you already write code.

• Amazon Developer documentation - specs and guides for building apps across Amazon Devices.

• Sample code on GitHub - reference apps, starter projects, and libraries.

• Developer Community forum - open discussions and Q&A for Fire TV, Alexa, and Ring developers.

• AmazonAppDev on YouTube - tutorials, talks, and workshops.

• Building in public on dev.to - technical articles from our developers.

• Developer newsletter - product releases and updates.

While you build, you can request $150 in AWS credits through the credit request form.

Build by track

Fire TV

Start with the Amazon Devices Builder Tools. The MCP server and Agent Skills teach your AI coding assistant how to build for Fire OS and Vega OS, so it can scaffold an app, profile performance, and help you debug against real device best practices.

Build a demo-ready Fire TV app for Fire OS or Vega OS using React Native, web technologies, or Android (Kotlin/Java). Prioritized categories: AI-enhanced viewing, sports, fitness, family entertainment, multi-modal UX, and computer vision. All the tools are free and public.

Starter samples on GitHub:

• react-native-multi-tv-app-sample - the most complete starter. One codebase for Vega, Android TV, Apple TV, and web, with drawer nav, content grid, hero, and a video player.

• react-native-multi-tv-helloworld - minimal single-codebase starter across Vega and other TV platforms.

• hello-world-fire-tv-react-native - a five-minute React Native Hello World for Fire TV.

• vega-video-sample - the richest Vega reference: W3C media player, focus management, live TV, in-app purchasing, and content launcher.

• vega-sports-app - themeable custom content app with catalog and service integration.

• vega-audio-sample - a music player with album, track, search, library, and settings.

• vega-tv-interfaces-sample - recommended TV UI patterns for focus, i18n, navigation, and scrolling.

• hello-world-fire-tv - the native path, in Kotlin and Jetpack Compose, for teams who want native Android over React Native.

Prefer building on React Native for TV? The Callstack team's free e-book, The Ultimate Guide to React Native TV Development, is a solid companion.

Docs and community:

• Fire TV documentation

• Vega developer forum

• Fire Devices & Appstore forum

Alexa+

Build a working MCP (Model Context Protocol) integration on the open standards for Agent Skills and Streamable HTTP transports. You can simulate an Alexa+ experience using your preferred agentic tools via a web app.

• Build with Agent Skills

• Streamable HTTP transport

Bee (Wearable AI)

Any project that integrates Bee's CLI, MCP, or Agent Skills with other services, devices, or developer tools. Priority use cases: education, developer experience, and personal productivity.

• Bee developer documentation - the CLI, MCP server, Bee Skill, and API.

• bee-cli - the command-line client for accessing and exporting your Bee data.

• bee-skill - the Bee Skill for connecting AI agents to Bee context.

Ring

Build a working project on the Ring APIs and devices that shows new functionality. Prioritized categories: access control, business systems, IoT home automation, accessibility, and care-taking. Creating a free Ring account gets you access to the Ring (Amazon Vision) APIs.

• Ring Developer portal - create a free account and get API access.

• Get started with Ring - configure, develop, certify, and publish.

• Ring API reference - authentication, endpoints, webhooks, rate limits, testing, and SDKs.

• UX design guide - design patterns for Ring experiences.

• Live apps and use cases - see what is already shipping for inspiration.

• Ring Developer community - announcements and an active Q&A section.

Starter sample:

• ring-api-helloworld - the canonical Ring API starter project.

Mini-challenges

Both mini-challenges build on top of a primary track submission. You are not entering a separate project, you are adding something to the one you already built.

AWS Builder

Take any primary track project and incorporate AWS services with documented integrations: Amazon Bedrock, AgentCore, the Strands SDK, Kiro, SageMaker, and more. The AWS free tier is enough to get started.

• AWS Builder Center - AWS's hub for developers: learning, community, tutorials, and Q&A in one place.

• Learn on Builder Center - hands-on tutorials, courses, and code samples for the AWS services you will use here. It is the fastest way to skill up on Bedrock, AgentCore, and Kiro before you build, and a good place to search when you hit a wall mid-project.

Open Source

Make a contribution to an open-source project repository during the hackathon window, alongside your primary track submission. Public repos and popular package directories work, no special access needed.

A tip on timing: October is also Hacktoberfest, a global open-source celebration run by Major League Hacking, DEV, and DigitalOcean. We are not affiliated with it, but if you are already contributing to open source during the hackathon, your work may also count. Their 2026 format moved away from counting pull requests, so check their current rules before you plan around it.

Get help and connect

• Live office hours - bring your questions and get unstuck with the Amazon Developer team. Schedule and join link posted on our landing page. 

• AI tools - the Amazon Devices Builder Tools bring device-specific knowledge into your AI coding assistant to scaffold, prototype, and debug. For AWS work, AWS Builder Center is the place to start.

• Developer Community forum - post questions and see what other builders are working on.

• Ring Developer community - active moderators and a Q&A section with real integration answers.

• YouTube - workshops and walkthroughs.

• LinkedIn - the Amazon Devices developer showcase.

Your feedback shapes what's next

A core goal of this hackathon is hearing where the developer experience can get better. The product feedback and feature requests you submit go straight to the teams building Fire TV, Alexa+, Bee, Ring, and the AWS tools. Tell us what worked and what got in your way, and you will help shape what we build next.