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For Hacktoberfest 2026, pull requests and merge requests no longer count toward rewards. The event instead centers on learning and building with open-source AI and open-weight models. That change does not make code or contributions unimportant: it shifts the event’s incentive away from counting submissions and toward the skills, judgment, and collaboration people develop while taking part.
What changed in Hacktoberfest 2026?
Hacktoberfest began in 2014 as a challenge to open four pull requests in October, with a T-shirt as the reward, according to the event’s mission. For 2026, its FAQ says pull requests and merge requests no longer count toward rewards.
The event’s stated focus is now hands-on learning and building with open-source AI and open-weight models. Its mission describes possibilities such as exploring open-weight models and open-source agents, writing a first skills.md, or fine-tuning an open-weight model. These are examples of the direction, not a promise that every activity will be available at every event.
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1Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches2Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors3Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute| What to compare | Earlier framing | Hacktoberfest 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Reward metric | A target of four pull requests in October, as described in the event’s mission. | Pull requests and merge requests do not count toward rewards, according to the event’s FAQ. |
| Stated participant focus | Making open-source contributions through pull requests. | Learning and building with open-source AI and open-weight models. |
| Maintainer burden | The event’s mission says the 2015–2025 period brought first contributions and community, alongside a flood of low-effort pull requests and maintainer burnout. | The FAQ says the new format is intended to reduce the burden of low-effort contributions. It does not report a measured reduction. |
The event’s account of its history is its own summary, not an independently audited participation count. Its FAQ also says open source continues year-round and people can still contribute outside the rewards format.
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Why the number of pull requests was never the whole story
A count can tell you how many submissions someone made. By itself, it cannot tell you whether the work solved a real problem, whether the contributor learned to navigate an unfamiliar project, or whether a maintainer had a good reason to spend time reviewing it.
That distinction is central to the event’s stated rationale for changing its rewards. Hacktoberfest’s mission puts it plainly: “But open source was never defined by a PR counter.” It describes open source as “a philosophy centered on transparency and collective ownership.” The point is not that pull requests have no value; a useful, well-prepared contribution can help a project and teach its author. It is that a reward metric should not be mistaken for the purpose of participation.
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For contributors, the climb often includes reading unfamiliar code, understanding a project’s conventions, asking a focused question, and revising work after feedback. Those steps may not produce a counted reward, but they build the judgment that makes future contributions more useful. For maintainers, submissions that fit a project’s needs are more valuable than activity for activity’s sake.
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Microsoft Learn’s contributor guidance, last updated September 28, 2023, recommends following a repository’s contribution instructions and describes successful pull requests as meaningful, impactful, well-articulated, and connected to an existing issue. It identifies automated low-value edits, disruptive changes, and submissions plainly intended to increase a pull-request count as examples of poor-quality contributions. This is general contributor advice, not a Hacktoberfest 2026 reward rule.
- Start with the project’s needs. Read its contribution guide and look for an issue or clearly documented problem before proposing a change.
- Make the change understandable. Explain what it addresses and why; keep the scope focused enough for maintainers to review.
- Respect review as collaboration. Feedback and revision are part of contributing, not evidence that the work failed.
- Use tools, including AI, with judgment. Assistance does not make a contribution automatically valuable or automatically poor. The relevant question is whether the result is accurate, useful, and aligned with the project’s guidance.
These criteria help distinguish a contribution that serves a project from one that merely adds to a tally. They do not imply that every counted contribution is harmful, or that AI-assisted work is inherently low quality.
How can you take part if pull requests no longer earn rewards?
Hacktoberfest’s 2026 FAQ says the event will feature more than 300 in-person and online community events worldwide. Its online participation page says beginners are welcome and do not need to build an AI project to attend a Meetup or watch a livestream.
- Check the official event information. Review the FAQ and online participation page for current dates, registration, eligibility, and available activities; these details may change.
- Choose an activity that fits your starting point. You can attend a Meetup, watch a livestream, or explore the event’s stated learning themes without assuming you need to arrive with an AI project.
- Follow your curiosity beyond October. If a session points you toward a project, resource, or open-source tool, use the project’s own instructions to decide how to engage. Contributions remain welcome, even though they no longer count toward Hacktoberfest rewards.
The format also makes room for outcomes that are not a merged change: learning how open-weight models work, trying an open-source agent, or becoming more comfortable asking questions in a technical community can all be meaningful progress.
What the shift does—and does not—say about AI and open source
Hacktoberfest’s new emphasis is specific: learning and building with open-source AI and open-weight models. It is not evidence that traditional open-source work has ended, that all contributors should build AI projects, or that AI-generated code is either acceptable or unacceptable by default. The event’s online page explicitly welcomes people who simply want to attend a Meetup or livestream.
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The more durable lesson is about incentives. When a program rewards a count, people may optimize for the count; when it creates space for learning and useful work, participants can focus more directly on understanding the technology and the community around it. Whether an individual contribution is worthwhile still depends on the project’s needs, its guidance, and the quality of the work—not on the label of the event or the tool used to produce it.
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