AppWorld Berlin 2026 – iRules Contest Winning Results
The second iRules Contest of the year wrapped up at AppWorld Berlin this week. This contest was looking towards the future, challenging participants to write an iRule that goes beyond BIG-IP’s built-in capabilities. The theme, using WebSockets or the Message Routing Framework, inspired iRules preventing abuse and intrusion. At the heart of it, we’ve loved the creative innovation of the iRules written for this years’ contests. The AppWorld Berlin iRules Contest submissions were inspiring. Across the board, judges’ feedback on the top contenders shared a common theme: these solutions are interesting. The winning iRules were well-documented, easy to understand, with clear potential value for production use. Without further ado, we’re proud to announce the winners of the AppWorld Berlin iRules Contest: Grand Prize Winner - Goerle_dev Rule: WS-Exfil-Shield: Catching What WAFs Miss After the 101 Handshake Summary This iRule addresses gaps in traditional WAFs by extending session-level, behavior-based threat detection to WebSocket traffic using real-time inspection within F5 BIG-IP. Detection operates in two stages; an initial timing-based heuristic is followed by payload validation using AI. Malicious actors are either blocked or routed to a honeypot for isolation and further observation. This iRule closes the gap that openly documented by major WAF vendors, post-handshake Websocket blind spot, with a practical, SIEM-ready enforcement. 2nd Place - Injeyan_Kostas Rule: WS-Shield: WebSocket Abuse Detection & Adaptive Enforcement Gateway Summary This iRule addresses securing WebSocket traffic by enabling real-time, behavior-based enforcement in F5 BIG-IP to proportionally mitigate abusive patterns without application changes. It introduces a behavioral enforcement engine designed to secure WebSocket traffic with adaptive, real-time mitigation without requiring application changes. Rather than relying on static thresholds, the system dynamically responds to behavior. Clean traffic naturally recovers, while abusive patterns escalate through enforcement tiers until they are cut off. This allows it to detect subtle, persistent attacks that traditional rate limiting often misses. In testing, the iRule identified and disconnected a bot sending repetitive payloads every half second, without triggering a rate threshold. The iRule adds an extensible, behavior-driven security layer that enables adaptable defenses with minimal investment, despite optional external dependencies. 3rd Place - Robb-Fr Rule: Generic iRule Based on Datagroup Parsing Summary This iRule addresses the complexity of migrating large numbers of Apache virtual hosts by centralizing flexible traffic routing and redirection logic within F5 BIG-IP using simple, extensible datagroups. It turns input into a simple form into a datagroup entry that CREATES iRULES for things like redirects, pools, error pages, rewrites, and more. This iRule is accessible to a wide range of F5 practitioners, as F5 expertise is not required. There are no direct iRule edits, and no way for them to break the device. This iRule lowers operational friction by enabling non-NetOps teams to manage complex traffic flows, improving agility during large-scale migrations. Category Awards The 20 Lines or Less Award - Kai_Wilke In honor of Colin Walker - short on lines, long on legend. The scroll bar never stood a chance. Rule: SUPER-WEBSOCKET-HANDSHAKE-LOGGER™® (SWHL) iRule The Layered Defense Award - ChristianEssel For elegant use of nested virtual servers to solve problems the apps won't. Rule: Layered Virtual ICAP Scanning Solution Gratitude A big thank you to all contestants who participated in the AppWorld Berlin iRules Contest. Your creativity, innovation, and willingness to share your ideas continue to push the community forward. Thank you to our judges: John_Alam Joel_Moses Moe_Jartin Chris_Miller Michael_Waechter dennypayne Kevin_Stewart Marcus-f5 SimonKowallik Sorin_Boiangiu Steve Scott Thank you to the DevCentral community. We learn together, grow together, and inspire each other every day. What's Next? Innovation and Creativity have been a key part of the contest rubric. We’re leaning into it, too. As we plan more contests for the year, we’re looking beyond iRules, with potential to expand to all programmability. The future is coming for us all; let’s greet it and move forward together.Win Big in Vegas: The iRules Contest is back with $5k on the line at AppWorld 2026
Hey there, community, iRules Contest here...did you miss me? Well I’m back in business, baby, in Vegas, no less! At AppWorld 2026, we’re challenging DevCentral community members in attendance to design and build innovative iRules that solve real-world problems, improve performance, and enhance customer experiences. Whether you’re a seasoned iRules veteran or just getting started, we can’t wait to see what you create. Note: participation in this edition of the iRules Contest is limited to AppWorld 2026 attendees. But fear not! We’re hitting the road this year as well. The Challenge Plan out and write an iRule that go beyond BIG-IP’s built-in capabilities. Think of the future: the possibilities are wide open. We’ll drop a couple hints leading up to the event, and you’ll have a final hint in your registration swag bag, so keep your eyes peeled. There might even be a hint in an iRules related article to release this week, who knows? $5,000 to the Grand Prize Winner -- Are You In? Total prize money is $10,000, with the other $5,000 distributed across 2nd place, 3rd place, and five category awards. Place Prize Grand Prize $5,000 2nd Place $2,500 3rd Place $1,000 Five Category Awards $300/ea What Makes for a Winning Entry? The 100-point scale judging criteria for submissions is defined below across five categories: Innovation & Creativity (25 points) Does this solution show original thinking? Consider: Novel use of iRule features or creative problem-solving Fresh perspective on common challenges Unique approach that stands out from typical solutions Business Impact (20 points) Would customers actually use this? Consider: Solves a real operational problem or customer need Practical applicability and potential adoption Clear business value Technical Excellence (25 points) Is it well-built and production-ready? Consider: Works correctly and handles edge cases Performance-conscious (efficient, minimal resource impact) Follows security best practices Clean, readable code Theme & Requirements Alignment (20 points) Does it address the contest theme using required technologies (to be announced at the event)? Consider: Relevance to the specified theme Effective use of required technology How well the chosen technology fits the solution Presentation (10 points) Can you understand what it does and why it matters? Consider: Clear explanation of the problem and solution Quality of demo or presentation Documentation sufficient to implement Important Dates Contest Opens: 6:00PM Pacific Time MARCH 10, 2026 Submission Deadline: 11:59PM Pacific Time MARCH 10, 2026 Winners Announced: MARCH 12, 2026 during general sessions How to Enter Register for AppWorld 2026 — You must be a registered attendee Register for the Contest — Registration will open on the AppWorld event app soon. The contest is open to all f5 partners, customers, and DevCentral members registered for and in attendance at the contest MARCH 10, 2026 at F5 AppWorld 2026, except as described in the Official Rules. Please see the Official Rules for complete terms, including conditions for participation and eligibility. Build and submit — During the 6-hour window on contest night before 11:59PM. Edit your draft entry as much as you like, but once you submit, that’s what we’ll review. There is an example entry pinned at the top of the Contest Entries page you should follow. Make sure to add these tags to your entry: "appworld 2026", "vegas", and "irules" as shown on that example. This contest is BYOD. Bring your own device to develop and submit your iRules submission. However, a lab environment in our UDF platform will be provided if you need a development environment to test your code against. New to iRules? No problem. We welcome participants at all skill levels. If you’re just getting started, check out our Getting Started with iRules: Basic Concepts guide. This contest is a great opportunity to learn by doing. Also, feel free to bring your favorite AI buddy with you to help craft your entry. The goal is innovation and impact, not syntax expertise. Questions? Post any and all of your contest-related questions to the pinned thread in the Contests group on DevCentral. We’ll monitor, but allow for a business day to receive a response leading up to AppWorld. The iRules Contest has a history of surfacing creative solutions from the community. Some of the best ideas we’ve seen came from people who approached problems differently, and we’re looking forward to seeing what you build this year. Register. Prepare. Compete. See you at AppWorld!F5 AppWorld 2026 Las Vegas - iRules Contest Winners!
Grand Prize Winner - Injeyan_Kostas Rule: LLM Prompt Injection Detection & Enforcement Summary This iRule addresses the emerging threat of prompt injection attacks on AI APIs by implementing a real-time detection engine within the F5 BIG-IP platform. This iRule operates entirely within the data plane, requiring no backend changes, and enforces a configurable security policy to prevent malicious content from reaching language models. By utilizing a multi-layer scoring system and managing patterns externally, it allows security teams to fine-tune detection and adjust thresholds dynamically. 2nd Place - Marcio_G & svs Rule: AI Token Limit Enforcement Summary This iRule addresses the critical challenge of resource control in on-premise AI inference services by enforcing token budgets per user and role. By leveraging BIG-IP LTM iRules, it validates JWTs to extract user and role information, applying role-based token limits before requests reach the inference service. This ensures that organizations can manage and protect their AI infrastructure from uncontrolled usage without requiring additional modules or external gateways. 3rd Place - Daniel_Wolf Rule: JSON-query'ish meta language for iRules Summary This iRule addresses the complexity and inefficiency of JSON parsing in F5's BIG-IP iRules by introducing a framework that simplifies the process. It provides a set of procedures, [call json_get] and [call json_set], which allow developers to efficiently slice information in and out of JSON data structures with a clear and concise syntax. This approach not only reduces the need for deep JSON schema knowledge but also improves performance by approximately 20% per JSON request. Category Awards The (Don’t) Socket To Me Award - mcabral10 Because not every AI agent deserves a socket to speak into. Rule: Rate limiting WebSocket messages for Agents The Rogue Bot Throttle Jockey Award - TimRiker Wrangling distributed egress so your edge doesn't have to beg. Rule: AI/Bot Traffic Throttling iRule (UA Substring + IP Range Mapping) The Don't Lose the Thread Award - Antonio__LR_Mex & rod_b Session affinity for the age of streaming intelligence. Rule: LLM Streaming Session Pinning for WebSocket AI Gateways The 20 Lines or Less Award - BeCur In honor of Colin Walker - short on lines, long on legend. The scroll bar never stood a chance. Rule: Logging/Blocking possible prompt injection The Budget Bodyguard Award - Joe Negron Security hardening for those who write TCL instead of checks. Rule: Poor Man's WAF for AI API Endpoints Gratitude Tnanks to buulam for championing the return of iRules contest, this would not have happened without his grit and tenacity. Thanks to our judges: John_Alam Joel_Moses Moe_Jartin Chris_Miller Michael_Waechter dennypayne Kevin_Stewart Austin_Geraci Thanks to Austin_Geraci and WorldTech IT throwing in an additional $5,000 to the grand prize winner! Amazing! Thanks to the contestants for giving up their evening to work on AI infrastructure challenges. Inspiring! Thanks to the F5 leadership team for making events like AppWorld possible. What's Next? Stay tuned for future contests, we are not one and done here. Could be iRules specific...or they could expand to include all programmabilty. Can't wait to see what you're going to build next.
