Thirteen categories, twelve of them under four pillars

For the reference material people keep open while they work — runbooks, architecture notes, how-tos, and docs sites that make a system operable.

One primary URL. If the work spans a docs tree, nominate the best entry point and mention the rest in “why.”

For a single incident write-up, published where anyone can read it, that taught the rest of us something we did not have to learn the hard way ourselves.

Companies are eligible for the write-up they gave away — never for the product that failed or the one they sell.

For a single piece that made a hard production topic clear — one article, thread, diagram set, or deep dive that people send to teammates with “read this.”

Judge the piece, not the author’s whole body of work. Serial teaching belongs under Teach.

For software given away that helps people run production — operators install it, fork it, or wire it into their stack without buying a license to start.

Nominate the project URL (repo or docs). Commercial companies remain eligible when the nominated work itself is free to use.

For places to practice — labs, sandboxes, game days, and interactive environments that teach production skills without requiring a paid seat to try.

If the environment is free to try and teaches production work, it belongs here even if a company also sells training.

For a group that held space for practitioners — a Slack/Discord/forum, user group, or working community where people get real answers about running systems.

Nominate the community’s public home URL. Moderators and organizers are the “authors” of the work.

For a person whose public body of work this cycle kept showing up in other people’s toolkits — consistent, free, and aimed at people who run systems.

Point at a representative public URL (home page, index, or best entry). The honor is for the person, judged on public work.

For someone who gave time — pairing, office hours, review, sponsorship — in a way that left a public trace others can still find.

This category is hard to evidence on purpose. Prefer nominations with a public URL plus a concrete “why” from someone who was helped.

For a show that kept teaching production engineering out loud — interviews, deep dives, or narrative episodes practitioners actually finish.

Ship It Weekly does not enter this category. It enters Rising Signal and is People’s Choice–only.

For a recurring written signal — the inbox brief people forward to their team because it catches what matters in production engineering.

On Call Brief is publisher-affiliated if entered: People’s Choice only, never Jury Award.

For ongoing writing — a blog, column, or series that kept publishing useful production engineering work across the cycle.

Nominate the series home or best index URL. Judges look for sustained quality, not one viral hit.

For a talk that traveled — a conference or meetup session whose recording or materials still teach after the hallway track ended.

Prefer a URL to the recording or canonical talk page. “You had to be there” is not enough.

For work launched in the last twelve months — any medium — that already punches above its age. Cross-pillar on purpose.

Ship It Weekly enters Rising Signal only. Publisher-affiliated entrants carry a visible marker and cannot receive the Jury Award.