BLOG / FIELD GUIDEPLAYOFFS · SEPTEMBER 1—6, 2026

THE FIRST ROTE PLAYOFFS

Bring the workflow
that wastes your week.

Guide your agent through it once. Leave with a Play you own.

Start with recurring work that drains your time, or reclaim a hosted workflow you pay to invoke every time it runs. Rote preserves the method so you can inspect, repair, and run it again from any harness.

REGISTER FOR THE EVENT ↗
ROTE PLAYOFFSARENA CREDENTIAL01—06 SEPTEMBER
2026
NAME / HANDLECLAIM ON ENTRYTYPEPLAYMAKER
FIELD
OPEN
ARENA
01
ACCESS
$PLAY

ID · PLY-0906-26   /   ONE METHOD THE FIELD CAN USE

GETTING STARTED · 7 MOVES

From curl to Playmaker.

Your pocket field guide. Follow it once; come back whenever you need the next move.

  1. 01

    Install the field kit.

    Run this once in Terminal. It detects supported agent apps, installs Play, and checks the setup.

    curl -fsSL https://getrote.dev/playoffs/install.sh | sh
  2. 02

    Choose your harness.

    Open a fresh conversation and ask what is new. The invocation changes by app; the Play does not.

    CODEX / CURSOR$play what's newCLAUDE / HERMES / OPENCODE/play what's newKIMI/skill:play what's new
  3. 03

    Claim your jersey.

    If no Rote account is detected, Play pauses cleanly and guides Google or GitHub sign-in. Claim a memorable handle—it becomes your public author namespace when you publish.

  4. 04

    Read the scoreboard.

    What’s new shows the live public Plays you can use, grouped by organization. Pick any Play that looks useful, then inspect its card before anything runs.

    $play what's new
    BROWSE PLAYS →
  5. 05

    Take two warm-up laps.

    Run Hello first: public data, no account credentials, no declared writes. Then choose another useful Play so you feel the difference between asking from scratch and running a proven method.

    $play run hello
  6. 06

    Teach one boring job.

    Choose repeated work that costs real time. Ask naturally, guide the run, correct the agent, and define what “done” means. A useful Play begins with one verified run—not a workflow diagram.

    $play [do something useful]
  7. 07

    Choose where the method lives.

    When the run is reusable, Play offers Team, Community, or Skip. Publishing is always your choice and is verified before the victory lap. Create a set of your best Plays and get profiled soon.

    CONGRATS. YOU ARE NOW A PLAYMAKER. ★
    MEET PLAYMAKERS →
YOUR ENTRY · ONE GOOD RUN

Bring one job you already know how to do.

Choose work that repeatedly burns your time, energy, sanity, or tokens—and gives something useful back quickly when it is done.

IN YOUR HARNESS$play [do something useful]

Ask naturally. Do not design an automation or write a workflow first.

  1. 01Choose real work.

    Use an inside job you already repeat—not a task invented for the competition.

  2. 02Guide one good run.

    Apply your expertise. Correct the agent, set boundaries, and show it what “done” means.

  3. 03Let rote keep the method.

    rote observes the successful actions and turns the proven path into an inspectable, shareable Play.

THE PODIUM · $5,000 IN PRIZES

Useful work gets the hardware.

01FIRST PLACE

MacBook Pro

For the Play the field most wants to keep using.

02SECOND PLACE

iPad

For a method that makes difficult work feel clear and repeatable.

03THIRD PLACE

iPhone 17

For a Play that turns one expert run into useful work others can carry.

The Playoffs is a hackathon for turning useful, repeatable work into public Plays. You do not need to design an automation. Install Play, ask your agent to do something useful, and guide one run with the expertise you already have.

The whole game#

  1. Install Play.
  2. In your harness, ask: $play [do something useful].
  3. Guide the agent through one successful run.
  4. Let rote turn the actions that worked into a shareable Play.

Choose work worth getting back#

Ask what a workflow takes from your time, energy, sanity, and tokens—and what it gives back in return.

The workflows that stick give something useful back quickly. Choose inside work you already do and repeatedly pay to rediscover. Your entry should remove real friction from your week, not manufacture a task for a demo.

You teach. rote remembers.#

Use the harness you already prefer. Apply your expertise as the agent works: choose the right tools, correct mistakes, set boundaries, and decide when the result is good.

rote stays underneath that interaction. It keeps the successful path and converts the agent's actions into an inspectable Play with fresh inputs for the next person.

The season#

The field opens on September 1 and runs through September 6, 2026. Builders, operators, domain experts, and first-time Playmakers are all invited. Register for the event on Luma.

Ship before the deadline. A Play can gather runs and improve while everyone else is still polishing their README.

Fine print, plainly#

  • An entry must run as a Play through rote.
  • Credentials remain local. Writes must be disclosed by the Play contract.
  • Teams are welcome; prizes are awarded per Play.
  • Reach Awards recognize genuine human attention around a shared Play. Purchased engagement, automated resharing, engagement farms, and coordinated bot activity do not count and may disqualify an entry.
  • Judges may publish exhibition Plays, but they do not compete for prizes.

Build the Play you will still want six months from now — after the clever prompt is forgotten and the work still needs doing.

Read the canonical Playoffs announcement