GM!CARL

The field manual

Everything you need to enter.

This is the whole rulebook for the Season 0 build challenge — short on purpose. If a question isn’t answered here, write me@gmcarl.xyz and we’ll answer it and add it to this page.

01 · The challenge

One question, all season.

What could you build that helps a community, a business, a creator, or a group of friends stay better connected?

Build it for GM Spaces, with it, or just near it. All of these count: community experiences, tools and automations, business or community pages, digital resources, AI experiences, creative campaigns, directories, event experiences, prototypes that extend what GM Spaces could be — or something none of us thought of. You do not have to write code to enter. A brilliantly designed community project beats a mediocre app.

One honest note for the technical folks: GM Spaces does not have a public API yet. “Integration” means using the product as it exists (rooms, drops, events, collects, the air) as part of your project, or prototyping what could exist. If your idea needs a door the app doesn’t have, email us — the studio builds in the open, and good asks have a way of getting built.

The two tracks

• ★ GM Spaces Track — build for or with the platform: rooms, drops, gm-code, event experiences, prototypes that extend what GM Spaces could be.
• ◆ Custom Track — bring your own — your own creation, any stack, no platform requirement. If it answers the question, it belongs here.

One submission, one track — say which in your submission drop’s story. The prize pool splits evenly between the tracks, and each track crowns one winner: a person or a team.

02 · Timeline

Three months, three doors in.

• September — ☕ Coffee with Carl. The challenge launches from the floor: prompt, prizes, timeline. Building can start the moment you leave (or before — the question above is already the prompt).
• September → November — the season. Build at your own pace. Weekly prompts and builder spotlights run in the app and the Dispatch. Keep your room’s currently line updated — it’s your build log, and it’s how you get picked for an October preview.
• October — 🍸 Cocktails with Carl. Selected builders give 90-second previews: I’m building… it’s for… what I need is… No decks. This is where teams find their missing person.
• November — 💻 Coding with Carl. Two lanes (below), then Demo Day. Dates and venues are announced on the Season 0 page and as event drops in the app — each drop carries its registration link.

The two November lanes

• The Sprint — you walk in with nothing. Find teammates that morning, pick an idea, prototype with mentor help, and you can still present by evening.
• The Finish Line — you’ve been building all season. Finish, test, polish, get feedback, prep your demo, compete.

Lanes are how you spend the day; tracks are what you compete in. Either lane can feed either track.

03 · Who can enter

Anyone. Really.

• Solo or team — teams of any size; most land at 2–4.
• Every team picks a captain. The captain’s room in GM Spaces is the project’s home, and the submission comes from it (see below). A room belongs to one person, so teammates are named in the submission, not added to the room.
• Join any time. Discovering this in November? The Sprint exists exactly for you.
• Free. Entering costs nothing at any point in the season.
• No experience required. Builders, designers, organizers, artists, writers, connectors — the judging criteria (below) reward more than engineering.

04 · Setup

The tools, in five minutes.

1. Join GM Spaces at app.gmcarl.xyz — email, code, pick light or dark and a color, say your name. About twelve seconds; no password, no app store.
2. Your room is your builder profile. Put what you’re making in currently (your build log — update it as you go), what you offer or need in the what block, and let people sign your wall — that’s your roster and your supporters.
3. Follow people. Search a name, open their room, tap + follow. Follow your teammates, the featured guests, and the house — the For You lens turns the map into your team’s map.
4. Learn the one gesture: drops. Tap + Drop on the map (or press and hold anywhere). Pick a kind — collectible, promo, or event — name it, drop it. Your project will ship as one of these, so drop something small this week just to feel it.
5. Show up and scan. At each event, the door QR is your check-in — it lands a receipt in your XP register (Settings → your XP). Three receipts by November is the Season Zero Pass.

05 · Room tools

Design your own room, for real.

Every room in GM Spaces is one document written in gm-code — the app’s own language for rooms. For the season, the studio’s actual design tools are open to every signed-in member:

• Drop from the playground — the cards bench carries a DROP IT panel: pick a kind, fill its one required field, and perform a real drop right there — or schedule it (the map holds it back until its moment), or keep it as a go-to: a named template on your composer shelf, editable later like any drop.
• The playground — app.gmcarl.xyz/test/play.html. Write a whole room and watch it render live at phone, wide, and desktop widths, with the real parser flagging collisions and overflow on every keystroke. It opens on a library of nine finished rooms to learn from. You can download your document as a .gmcode file or write it back to your own room.
• The living block docs — app.gmcarl.xyz/test/docs.html. All 27 blocks of the language, each with editable code beside a live render.
• Live polls, in any room — new for the season: <gm-door does="vote" poll="mural">The heron</gm-door>. Doors sharing a poll= are one question; every member gets one vote per poll, pressing another option moves it, and the count shows on the door for everybody. Your project can run real votes the day you start.
• Standing orders — also new for the season: your room can act by itself. <gm-on when="collect" do="thank">appreciate you</gm-on> makes the room answer everyone who collects your drops, in your words, and do="bell" rings your phone when somebody was just there. The house performs it server-side — nothing ever runs in a visitor’s browser.
• The written contract — app.gmcarl.xyz/gmcode. The full language reference: every block, every attribute, every law.

Sign in first. The playground and the living docs are member tools — they open for anyone with a room (twelve seconds at app.gmcarl.xyz) and politely refuse everyone else.

Anything beyond these tools — an API you wish existed, data you need, a door the app doesn’t have — email me@gmcarl.xyz. The studio builds in the open, and good asks have a way of getting built.

06 · How to submit

Your submission is a drop.

No forms, no portals. On Demo Day, the team captain publishes one drop from their room, pinned at the venue:

The drop stays on the map after the event — your project keeps existing where the city can find it. Keep your captain’s room current too: voters will look at the room behind the drop.

Deadline: submission drops must be live before Demo Day voting opens (exact time announced at Coding with Carl, morning of).

07 · Demo Day

Five minutes, then three.

• 5 minutes: demo. Show the thing working. A live demo beats slides; slides beat nothing. If it breaks, tell us what it was supposed to do — honesty is house canon.
• 3 minutes: questions from the room.
• Voting is live in the app: the room collects the submission drops they believe in — the same keep gesture as any other drop. Most collects in each track takes the track, so make your drop worth keeping.

08 · Judging

The community votes.

There is no judge panel this season — the room is the jury. Voting runs in the app at Demo Day: open a submission drop and collect it, the same way you keep anything else on the map. The tally sits on the drop for everyone to see, like every other number this season, and most collects in each track takes that track’s prize.

What makes it a fair count

• One vote each. The database allows one collect per person per drop, so a second tap changes nothing. You cannot stack a drop.
• You have to be here. Keeping a submission needs you within a block of the venue pin, or a code scanned at the counter. Friends at home cannot decide a $300 card.
• Back as many as you like. There is no limit on how many submissions you collect, only on how many times you can collect the same one. Championing one project does not mean voting against another.
• Makers can vote, including for themselves. That is one vote, like everyone else’s.
• A tie splits that track’s prize evenly between the tied entries.

Six questions worth weighing

Nobody scores these. They are what to think about before you collect something.

The prizes

• ★ GM Spaces Track winner — a $300 Visa gift card.
• ◆ Custom Track winner — a $300 Visa gift card.

One winner per track, solo or team. A team wins as one unit and takes one card — a gift card can’t be cut in four. It goes to the captain, who is the person the team already named, and the team settles it however it wants. One prize per person, so if you’re on two teams you can only win once.

The pool is sponsor-funded — $600 today, from Red Foundry and Obsrvr, $300 each, into one pool rather than one sponsor per track. It can grow as sponsors land, and the cards grow with it: watch the sponsor wall. However big it gets, it always splits evenly between the two tracks.

09 · The rules

Short, because we mean them.

• Your work stays yours. You keep all rights to what you build. Submitting gives the studio permission to show it (the drop, the demo, photos of Demo Day) when telling the season’s story — nothing more.
• AI hands are welcome — say so. This studio builds with AI openly and says it out loud. You’re held to the same honesty: disclose what your robots did. Nobody loses points for using AI; people lose trust for hiding it.
• Bring what you have. Existing code, libraries, and past work are fine as foundations — be upfront about what was built this season vs. before. The Finish Line rewards a season of work; the Sprint rewards a day of it. Say so in your story — the room weighs accordingly.
• Show up as yourself. No costumes is house canon. Be kind, be honest, credit your collaborators. One warning; then you’re out.
• Respect the room. Projects that harass, deceive, or scrape people’s private lives are out of bounds — privacy is studio canon (by zip, never an address) and your project is held to it too.
• The room’s call is final. Most collects in your track wins, and the numbers stay public, like everything else this season.

10 · FAQ

Asked, answered.

Does it cost anything?

No. The season, the events, the challenge — free.

I can’t code. Can I still win?

Yes. Four of the six voting questions have nothing to do with code, and “Execution” means did you build the thing — a running community program is a built thing.

Which track am I in?

You declare it in your submission drop’s story. Built for or with GM Spaces → GM Spaces Track. Your own creation, any stack → Custom Track. One submission, one track; each track’s prize is a $300 Visa gift card, won by one person or one team, decided by how many people collect it at Demo Day.

Can I work on my existing project?

Yes, if you’re honest about what happened this season. The story beat “what’s next” matters more than where you started.

How do teams form?

Everywhere: the idea wall at Coffee, the previews at Cocktails, the app, the Sprint morning. Post “I need…” in your room’s what block and keep it current.

What if my demo needs internet / a screen / a weird thing?

Email me@gmcarl.xyz before Demo Day and we’ll sort the logistics. No team fails for an outlet.

Where do announcements happen?

The app first — follow the house and the bell carries it — then the Season 0 page, then the Dispatch.

Something here is unclear.

Tell us — the ✎ Feedback button in the app files straight to the studio’s tracker, or email. Unclear docs are bugs.