Competition participant manual Stable

This manual is for someone solving a TenkaCloud problem. You do not need to understand AWS architecture, databases, deployment parameters, or how the problem was authored.

Your goal

Open one problem, start its isolated environment, investigate or repair it, find proof in the form TC{...}, and submit that complete value in the Participant Portal.

The five-step solve flow

Open Problems and choose one available problem.
Read the situation, goal, first suggested action, and completion condition.
Press Start problem and wait until the problem environment is running.
Open the displayed endpoint or console and investigate the running system.
Paste the complete TC{...} flag into the submission field and submit it.

A score change or a solved marker is the success signal. A TenkaCloud problem is not a quiz that asks you to guess a word from the title.

Local practice without a cloud account

Use local drills in Getting started when you want to practice on your own machine. Local mode uses Docker to create an isolated problem environment and does not contact AWS.

make local

The command opens the Participant Portal. Choose and start a problem there. When finished, press Stop on the problem page, or stop the complete local session:

make local-down

In a hosted competition, do not install or configure Docker unless the organizer explicitly tells you to. Use the Participant Portal URL and team key provided by the organizer.

Terms you will see

Term	Plain meaning
Server	A computer that keeps a website or application available
Cloud	A way to use servers and storage supplied by a provider
Docker	A way to package an application and its dependencies so a matching practice environment can be recreated
Problem environment	The isolated running system created for one problem
Endpoint	A URL or address where you access that system
Flag	The complete `TC{...}` proof that the problem verifier can score
Hint	Optional help. The portal shows any score cost before you reveal it
Reset	Discard the current practice state and create it again

Participant MCP is score lookup only

Most participants do not need to configure MCP. Start problems, reveal hints, and submit flags in the Participant Portal. Only when the organizer explicitly provides an Always-On MCP endpoint should you connect to {ALWAYS_ON_CONTROL_PLANE_ORIGIN}/mcp/participant with your team key as the Bearer token.

The current get_my_score tool returns only your team name, event ID, aggregate score, and solved-checkpoint count. It does not return correct flags, hint answers, the team key, submissions, or another team's name or score. Put the team key in the client's secret storage, never in a prompt or log.

If something does not work

Symptom	What to check
Start is disabled	The event may not have started, or the environment may still be deploying
Start ends in an error	Retry once. In a hosted event, send the displayed error to the organizer
The endpoint does not open	Wait for Running, then use the endpoint shown on the problem page
The flag is rejected	Copy from `TC{` through the closing `}` with no missing characters
The page was reopened and looks stale	Refresh the portal before starting a second environment
You want a clean attempt	Use Reset when available, or Stop and then Start

Never send your team key or a private competition flag to another team. If the problem text and running environment disagree, report the problem ID and the visible error; do not include credentials.