Inspiration
We noticed that people often set personal goals but struggle to follow through because there are no immediate consequences for breaking their commitments. Traditional habit trackers offer reminders, but they rarely create meaningful accountability. We wanted to turn promises into actions by introducing something real at stake: financial commitment combined with AI-powered verification.
What it does
STAKE is an AI-powered commitment and accountability platform that allows users to set goals, choose a financial stake, and define a deadline. Users authorize their stake through PayPal. Once they submit proof of completion, Gemini AI evaluates the evidence against their original commitment.
- Success: The payment authorization is voided.
- Failure or expiration: The authorized stake can be captured and forfeited to a selected cause, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
- Uncertain AI decisions: A review mechanism prevents low-confidence results from automatically triggering financial actions.
STAKE also provides countdowns, commitment tracking, and an audit trail.
How we built it
We built STAKE using Next.js, React, TypeScript, and Tailwind CSS for the frontend and application architecture.
- Google Gemini API: AI-powered proof evaluation and confidence-based decision-making.
- PayPal REST API and JavaScript SDK: Payment authorization and settlement workflow.
- Upstash Redis: Persistent cloud storage for commitment data.
- Next.js API routes: Backend operations, validation, and settlement handling.
- Audit logging: Tracking important commitment and verification events.
We designed the platform around a safety-first principle: uncertain AI decisions should never independently trigger financial transactions.
Challenges we ran into
One of our biggest challenges was integrating multiple external services into a single reliable workflow. Handling PayPal authorization separately from payment capture required careful settlement logic.
We also faced challenges in designing reliable AI proof verification, particularly distinguishing relevant evidence from unrelated or ambiguous submissions. Another challenge was configuring cloud deployment, environment variables, and persistent storage while maintaining consistent behaviour between local and production environments.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
- Developed a complete commitment creation and countdown experience.
- Integrated Gemini-powered proof evaluation with confidence and review safeguards.
- Implemented the PayPal authorization and settlement architecture.
- Built persistent cloud storage using Upstash Redis.
- Designed an accountability workflow connecting user goals, evidence, AI decisions, and financial consequences.
- Achieved 37 passing automated tests, with successful linting and production builds.
What we learned
We learned that building an AI-powered financial application requires much more than connecting an AI API to a frontend. Reliability, security, transaction integrity, uncertainty handling, and user trust are equally important.
We also gained practical experience integrating third-party APIs, managing cloud deployments, designing backend workflows, and testing systems under tight hackathon deadlines.
What's next for STAKE
We envision evolving STAKE into a comprehensive personal accountability ecosystem.
Our future plans include:
- Completing and strengthening end-to-end PayPal Sandbox and live payment integration.
- Improving AI verification accuracy using multimodal evidence analysis.
- Introducing customizable charitable organizations and causes.
- Adding recurring commitments, group challenges, and social accountability.
- Developing personalized AI coaching and progress insights.
- Expanding integrations with calendars, fitness trackers, and productivity tools.
Our long-term vision is to make STAKE a platform where people don't just promise to achieve their goals—they actively commit to them.
Built With
- google-gemini-api
- next.js
- paypal-javascript-sdk
- paypal-rest-api
- react
- tailwind-css
- typescript
- upstash-redis
- vercel
- vitest
