# Overview

> How the challenge works, for both tracks.

Source: <https://frontieror-challenge.com/docs>

Each stage publishes a set of optimisation problems. Your team builds a solver for each one and submits it, and a leaderboard per track ranks the teams. [Getting started](https://frontieror-challenge.com/getting-started) is the short version; these pages cover the details.

## Tracks at a glance

|              | Main                                                | Self-hosted                               |
| ------------ | --------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------- |
| You submit   | Solver code, one folder per problem                 | Solutions, uploaded within a time window  |
| Runs on      | Our sandbox: 2 vCPU, 4 GB, no network               | Your own machines                         |
| Dependencies | Open-source only                                    | Anything, including commercial solvers    |
| Scored on    | The Main track's private instances                  | The Self-hosted track's private instances |
| Leaderboard  | Its own; the overall champion comes from this track | Its own                                   |

Start with the Main track's [Submission flow](https://frontieror-challenge.com/docs/main/submission-flow) or the Self-hosted track's [Submission flow](https://frontieror-challenge.com/docs/self-hosted/submission-flow).

## Stages

- **Stage 1: Qualification** releases its problems in 4 weekly rounds. Teams build solvers for the published problems and climb the leaderboard.
- **Stage 2: Final** brings new problems outside the published benchmark, with unseen instances. Teams adapt their solvers within a fixed development window, finalists submit their agentic framework, and the final ranking is decided on a private final dataset. The details are published before Stage 1 ends.

The dates are on the [timeline](https://frontieror-challenge.com/#timeline). A round's problems stay hidden until it opens; from then on they are listed on the [problems page](https://frontieror-challenge.com/problems).

## Rounds

Stage 1 releases 15 problems a week in 4 rounds. Each round is open for 7 days, then closes as the next one opens.

- A submission covers only the open round's problems. Submissions are accepted only while a round is open.
- The leaderboard has one stage score per team: its best submission in each round, averaged over every problem released so far. A round the team skipped counts 0.
- The open round counts from the day it opens, so a team that has not submitted to it yet scores 0 on its problems until it does.

## Teams

- You take part as a team, even a team of one. Create one on the dashboard, or accept an invitation.
- You can be on one team at a time.
- A team name is 3 to 40 characters and unique; the description is up to 200 characters.
- The owner invites registered users by email, with up to 5 invitations pending. Accepting one cancels your other invitations.
- Members can leave. The owner can hand ownership to another member, and can delete the team while alone in it and before it has submitted.

## Choosing a track

You pick the track when you create the team, and the owner can change it until Stage 1 opens. From then on it is locked for the rest of the competition.

## Daily submissions

Each team has one submission per UTC day, 4 during the testing stage, reset at 00:00 UTC. What counts:

- **Main:** every submission that passes the upload checks, including ones that later fail. A refused upload does not count.
- **Self-hosted:** opening a submission, whether or not you upload anything.

Your best completed submission in each round is the one that counts on the leaderboard.