Splunk Agentic Ops hackathon opens

Devpost has opened submissions for the Splunk Agentic Ops Hackathon, giving developers until June 15 to submit projects built with Splunk’s AI tooling. Splunk said the contest began May 18 in partnership with Devpost and is aimed at developers, security practitioners, IT and network engineers, observability teams and platform builders. The company said entries should combine AI with Splunk across observability, security and platform use cases, with $20,000 in prizes and free passes to.conf26 available for winners. ### Who is the event trying to attract? Splunk said the hackathon is aimed at teams already working close to operational data rather than general-purpose AI hobbyists. In its launch post, the company named developers, security professionals, IT teams, observability teams and platform builders as target participants. Splunk framed the event around “AgenticOps,” its term for AI systems that work alongside human operators on incidents, threats and workflows. (splunk.devpost.com) Devpost’s challenge page describes the event as a call to “reimagine the future of agentic operations using Splunk AI.” The page says participants are expected to build intelligent applications that improve observability, security and network operations, and developer productivity. ### What kinds of projects does Splunk want? Splunk divided the competition into three tracks: Observability, Security and Platform. (splunk.com) In the Observability track, the company said it wants AI tools that can monitor systems more intelligently, speed incident investigation, identify root causes and improve reliability. Splunk added that stronger entries could go beyond dashboards and alerts to summarize incidents and guide remediation using operational context. (splunk.devpost.com) The Security track is focused on workflows that help teams detect, investigate and respond to threats faster, according to Splunk’s announcement. The Platform track is aimed at developer and administrator tooling that makes it easier to build, extend and automate with Splunk. ### Why does MCP show up in this story? Splunk has been building around the Model Context Protocol, or MCP, as part of its broader agent strategy. (splunk.com) In a February 10 blog post, Splunk said its MCP server became generally available on February 4 and described it as a bridge connecting AI agents to Splunk search and discovery tools. The company said the server was meant to let users connect agents to Splunk data “in minutes” instead of building custom integrations. That matters because the hackathon is not limited to chatbot-style demos. Splunk’s recent platform materials tie its AI push to operational data, hosted models and MCP-based access to machine data across SecOps, ITOps and NetOps environments. ### What does the timing say about Splunk’s AI push? May 13 marked Splunk’s public launch of the hackathon, and May 18 marked the start of the build period, according to the company’s blog and Devpost materials. (splunk.com) The timing places the event alongside a broader run of Splunk announcements this year around hosted AI models, unified data fabric and agentic security operations. Splunk’s launch post said “your data strategy is your AI strategy,” tying the contest to the company’s argument that useful AI systems need real-time operational context from logs, metrics, events and traces. That framing puts the emphasis on tools that can operate on telemetry and workflows, not only generate text. ### What happens next for participants? (splunk.com) June 15 is the submission deadline listed on the Devpost calendar and update posts. Devpost’s submissions update says entrants need a public code repository with an open-source license, a README and setup instructions before filing a project. Splunk said winners will receive a share of the $20,000 prize pool and free passes to.conf26. The next milestone for builders is the June 15 deadline on the Devpost challenge site, where Splunk and Devpost are posting rules, updates and submission requirements. (splunk.com) (splunk.devpost.com)