OpenAI's Codex Track hackathon offers $10K cash and ChatGPT Pro subscriptions

OpenAI has introduced the Codex Track, a special prize track within a hackathon that awards $10,000 in cash and ChatGPT Pro subscriptions to the top three builds. The twist? Codex itself serves as the judge, reviewing each entry and scoring how well participants used Codex as their coding agent along with overall quality. To enter, developers must build their space using Codex as the coding agent, push all code to a public GitHub repo containing Codex-attributed commits, and add the repo link to their Space README.

Despite the exciting opportunity, some participants faced friction during onboarding. Multiple users reported difficulty activating their Codex vouchers awarded from the hackathon, with error messages like "Model voucher access denied." Meanwhile, Modal voucher activation required multiple attempts before acceptance. Team members and admins (including @hannah, @hmb, @freddyaboulton, and others) were added to the thread for resolution. The incident highlights a common UX gap in promotional credit systems, though the hackathon itself remains a compelling showcase for Codex's capabilities in real-world development workflows.