This week's newsletter is brought to you by Xanadu.

Hey there! Welcome to our newsletter, where we update you on what’s going on in the DEV world.

The DEV team is on the ground at AI Engineer New York this week, and we’re reporting live from the event in our daily print publication, The Daily Context. Not in NYC? You can find every issue online at dev.to/aie.

Week 2 of Hacktoberfest is officially here, and our newest challenge just launched. The Hacktoberfest Open-Source AI Challenge: Side Hustle has $2,550 in prizes across 18 winners, so it’s a great time to grab an open-weight model and start building. We can't wait to see what you build.

Have a great week ❤️

As always, here are our favorite posts from last week in no particular order:

• I got Jev to zero mistakes. I’m still using Flash-Lite.: comparing a hyped new model against the workhorse already running in production.
• The Epistemology of Quality: rethinking human code review in the age of AI.
• The Frog That Lived: Let’s learn about falsification.: how a philosopher’s idea about disproving claims can change the way you write tests.
• I Put a Local LLM in Charge of a Colony and Asked It to Tell the Truth. It Didn’t.: a hands-on experiment exploring how much a single sentence can shape an AI’s honesty.
• Aborting a Fetch Doesn’t Stop Your Node.js Server. Here’s What Does.: insights into what keeps running on your server after a client walks away.
• Llama Village: a virtual world powered by local AI with llamadart: building a 3D village where on-device AI gives each llama its own voice.
• Build a Tiny Virtual Pet on Arduino in 60 Minutes 🐾: a hands-on tutorial building a tiny Tamagotchi-style pet.

Compete. Code. Win Cash with QHack.

QHack 2026 invites students and developers to compete for $67K in prizes. The hands-on coding challenge runs October 16 to 22, and registering unlocks free beginner-to-expert quantum training videos on using PennyLane to build programs for the future of computing.

Here are some standout wins from last week's discussion:

• @amanmaurya92: landed their 29th merged PR in LLVM, published their second DEV post during Hacktoberfest, and scored a GTM management interview at an AI company 🚀
• @xulingfeng: brought back the 36 Stratagems series, kicking off the final six chapters ⚔️
• @dannwaneri: submitted a Kaggle Benchmarking Challenge entry two days early, testing whether AI models trust a wrong label over the underlying data 🧪
• @pengeszikra: knocked down a wall with a 5kg hammer, built a secret dungeon builder with Claude, and launched a Singularity News channel 🔨
• @francistrdev: hit their second-highest performing DEV post on why devs still need a website portfolio in the age of vibe coding 💼

Well done, everyone!

Thanks for Being Awesome! 😎

Have we told you lately how awesome you are? Thanks a ton for all you bring to DEV. Your ideas, your content, your support—it's what makes this community great.

Happy coding!

P.S. Thank you again to Xanadu for sponsoring this week's newsletter.