DEV: Challenge Accepted 2026

Attendees, exhibitors & solutions

Who this event is for

Industry trends

Key trends shaping this market and its wider industry.

Hotel tiers

A range of accommodation options near the venue and across key areas.

Local transport

Get around the city with these convenient transport options.

Frequently asked

Glossary

1

AI agent

A software system that uses a large language model to plan and take actions, often calling tools or APIs, rather than only generating a text reply. At Challenge Accepted 2026, the session The Emperor Has No Clothes: Building Your Own AI Agent looks at what agents actually are and where they fail.

2

Model Context Protocol (MCP)

An open protocol for connecting AI models and agents to external tools, data sources and services in a standard way. The 2026 programme references MCP when explaining how an agent reaches beyond the model itself.

3

Test automation

Using scripts, frameworks and tooling to execute checks against software without manual repetition. It is a core theme for the developer and QA audience at this Sofia conference.

4

Quality engineering

An approach that treats quality as an engineering and leadership responsibility across architecture, delivery and operations, not only as a late-stage testing activity. The session Quality Is Now a Leadership Problem frames quality as a management concern.

5

Shift-left testing

Moving testing and quality checks earlier in the software lifecycle so defects are found before release. It is a common discussion point for teams working on CI/CD and developer productivity.

6

Flaky test

A test that produces inconsistent pass or fail results without a relevant code change. Flaky tests are a practical concern for teams building reliable automation pipelines.

7

CI/CD pipeline

An automated sequence that builds, tests and deploys software changes. Conference attendees working in platform, QA and DevOps roles often evaluate how test stages fit into these pipelines.

8

Observability

The ability to understand a system's internal state from logs, metrics, traces and events. It complements testing by showing how software behaves in production.

9

Test orchestration

Coordinating test environments, data, dependencies and execution order across a test suite. It matters when automation grows beyond a single team or repository.

10

Evaluation harness

A repeatable setup for scoring AI model or agent outputs against test cases, rubrics or expected behaviour. It is the AI-era counterpart to a regression suite for prompt and agent changes.

11

Prompt engineering

Designing and refining the instructions and context given to a language model so it produces useful, reliable output. For agent builders, prompts are one part of a larger system that includes tools, memory and evaluation.

12

Regression testing

Re-running checks to confirm that new changes have not broken existing behaviour. It is a baseline practice for the software teams attending the event.

13

Synthetic monitoring

Scripted checks that simulate user journeys against a live system on a schedule. It helps teams catch availability and performance problems between releases.

14

Platform engineering

Building internal developer platforms and self-service tooling so product teams can deliver software with less operational friction. It connects to quality, automation and developer productivity themes in the programme.