skills/build-prd/references/content/steps/start.md

# Welcome to {{event.name}}

Welcome. Codex will guide you through the hackathon from inside this project folder.

You will use chat for questions, decisions, and confirmations. Codex will keep each step inline with text progress and clear next actions.

This step also registers you for the event: Codex fetches the official registration form, walks you through its questions, and registers you on Devpost — after showing you exactly what will be submitted and getting your confirmation. If you are already registered, Codex will see that and move on.

Codex guides the whole journey: reviewing requirements, choosing resources, optionally shaping your idea through a guided build tool, preparing your submission materials, and — after a final check and your explicit confirmation — submitting your project to Devpost right from here.

If you are new to Codex CLI, skim the [Codex CLI documentation](https://developers.openai.com/codex/cli). You can also ask Codex to look up Codex documentation while you work. If you are building a web project, ask Codex to help start your local dev server, explain how to open it in your browser, and give feedback from screenshots, logs, or files as you iterate.

A note on usage: depending on your plan, working through a hackathon project — especially with the guided build tool — can use a meaningful share of your usage limits. A good strategy: use the most powerful models to plan and specify the work, then have cheaper models carry it out — for example, spawn subagents running smaller models to execute the tasks you specified with the bigger one.

We've included a simple stepper visualization so you always know what stage of your project you're in. If that's ever not enough information, type `$hackathon-map` for the full picture.
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