// Rubber Duck Thursdays - Build for the love of code

In this episode, we recap the latest GitHub changelog including GitHub Spark entering public preview and coding agent support for instructions.md files. We introduce the Build for the love of code hackathon, prototype a rubber duck debugging app with GitHub Spark, and build an MCP server from scratch using TypeScript while exploring tools, prompts, and resources.

Topics covered

• GitHub changelog recap — M2 Pro hosted runners, GitHub Issues quality-of-life updates, Azure endpoint deprecation for GitHub Models, PR files changed improvements, Copilot code review policy changes, GitHub Spark public preview for Copilot Pro Plus, coding agent support for instructions.md custom instructions, and base branch selection for coding agent tasks.
• Build for the love of code hackathon — Introduced the gh.io/love-of-code hackathon running July 16 to September 22 with six categories: hardware projects, AI agents, terminal tools, games, web apps, and wildcard entries. Brainstormed duck-themed project ideas with Copilot.
• GitHub Spark prototyping — Used GitHub Spark (now in public preview) to rapidly prototype a rubber duck debugging web app with animated duck companions and different debugging personalities.
• Building an MCP server from scratch — Scaffolded a TypeScript MCP server project from an empty repository, covering server initialization with the MCP SDK, registering tools with Zod schema validation, defining prompts and resources, and setting up repository foundations including dev containers, Dependabot configuration, and GitHub Actions CI workflows.