Reflection on AgentHack 2025
Back when I was in Oakridge (my school), we were always encouraged to write reflections, mapping our thoughts and experiences back to our Units of Inquiry (UOI, as we called them). Over time, this became a habit. Even now, three years into my university (VIT), I still find myself reflecting on most of my daily activities.
So here’s my reflection on AgentHack2025 — a 4-day hackathon hosted by WeMakeDevs in collaboration with Portia. The challenge was to build something fun with portia-sdk-python, using agents powered by an underlying LLM.
Breaking Old Patterns
Now, here’s the thing: I had never built a backend project entirely from scratch. My experience so far had been mostly frontend work, or contributing to projects already set up by other developers.
This hackathon was the first time I had to do it all — frontend and backend — and I honestly loved it. It was tough, but I learned a lot.
And I’ll be honest: I leaned on AI coding assistance.
Gemini Pro helped me weigh different approaches for the license-checking logic and debug stubborn issues.
Claude gave me a rough FastAPI setup that helped me get started.
Even then, I ran into endless installation and compatibility issues. What made it more interesting? I decided to participate in this hackathon in the same week as my CAT exams. Normally, I’m not the type to multitask, I’ve been told to focus on one thing at a time. But this time, I wanted to challenge myself and break old patterns. I wanted to see if this could emerge my “Bring it on” self.
A Hackathon of Firsts
First time participating solo
First time building a project from scratch (frontend + backend)
First time asking a question on Stack Overflow (because I exhausted my gemini pro chat way too many times)
And honestly, each of these milestones felt exciting in its own way.
Tying Back to My UOI
At my university, I’m currently studying Malware Analysis (a course I took this sem, I’m actually from CSE core). Our class discussions often touch on legal compliance, licensing, and security risks in software — which sparked an idea.
What if I could build a tool to help open-source developers quickly check if their project dependencies are legally compliant? Especially for beginners, this can feel overwhelming. So I built exactly that: a license and compliance checker.
With just three well-integrated Portia agents, the tool can scan a repo in moments and give insights into license risks. It’s small, but meaningful — and very much inspired by my interest around Cybersecurity and Compliance.
Final Thoughts
It wasn’t easy. But I’m proud of how much I learned. For the first time, backend development feels less intimidating — I can actually see and understand the moving pieces, which I could do before as well, but the feel of making it all by myself, navigating through the errors and finally seeing the result, it gave me a confidence boost.
A big shoutout to the Portia AI agents for making the backend part smoother for me.
I’m really glad I participated in this hackathon. It pushed me out of my comfort zone, gave me a project I truly care about, and showed me that I can handle challenges even when they come all at once.
