Applying to Prime Intellect · researched 12 Nov 2026

How to apply to Prime Intellect

Create a Prime Intellect account and set a username, install the Prime CLI and run prime login, build an environment with the verifiers library and publish it with prime env push (publishing is unpaid); the one paid route is the RL Residency, a written application that, if accepted, brings a stipend and compute, because the cash bounty program is closed.

Start your Prime Intellect application

Applying to Prime Intellect, step by step

Researched Nov 2026

Who can join

Be at least 18. Prime Intellect's Terms of Service (last updated 4 November 2026) say you must be at least 18 years old to create an account.
Not be located in, or ordinarily resident in, a country or region subject to comprehensive US sanctions, and not be on a US government list of prohibited or restricted parties.
Hold the rights to what you publish. The terms make the license you select at publication govern others' use of it.
A username set on your Prime Intellect profile and the Prime CLI signed in with prime login, which the docs list as what you need before working with the Environments Hub.
Python packaging skills. An environment is a Python module that declares its dependencies in pyproject.toml, ships as a wheel and follows the verifiers spec; the docs say new environments should target verifiers v1.
For the paid RL Residency, an idea for novel RL environments or evals. Prime Intellect named grad students with research ideas, independent builders and hackers, and part-time researchers as who it is for.

Step by step

1
Create an account and set a username
Sign up at app.primeintellect.ai and set a username on your profile page. The docs list the username, the CLI and signing in as the prerequisites for the Environments Hub.
2
Install the Prime CLI and sign in
Install uv, then the CLI with uv tool install prime (or pip install prime), and authenticate with prime login, or set an API key with prime config set-api-key.
3
Start an environment from the template
Run uvx --from verifiers vf-init followed by your environment's name. It creates a module with a README (shown on the Hub), a pyproject.toml for dependencies, version and tags, and a Python file with stub code. That docs page describes the older verifiers v0 workflow and says to build new environments on verifiers v1.
4
Test it, knowing that model calls are billed
Hosted evaluations use Prime Inference pricing for the model you pick by default, paid from your Prime account balance. If you point a run at your own model endpoint instead, Prime bills the sandbox compute and your provider bills the tokens.
5
Publish it to the Environments Hub
Run prime env push inside the environment's folder. It is uploaded under your account and anyone can install it with prime env install owner/environment-name unless you add --visibility=PRIVATE; --team publishes to a team, and --auto-bump raises the version for you.
6
Join a Sprint for compute credits (optional)
Prime Sprints, launched on 20 May 2026, run approved training jobs for free. For the first track, reward hacking, you wrote 'reward hacking sprint' in a public environment's README, shared it on the Hub and submitted a Hosted Training config for approval. Prizes were $5K+ in compute credits, not cash, and new tracks were to follow each month.
7
Apply to the RL Residency
The application form asks for your email, your idea for novel RL environments, evaluations or research experiments with your expertise and compute needs, links to your X, GitHub or Hugging Face, and how you heard of Prime Intellect. After you submit, it says only: 'We'll reach out to you soon if we're interested!'
8
If accepted, build in the residency repository
Residents contribute through pull requests to Prime Intellect's residency-environments repository. A company code owner reviews each pull request before it is merged, and every environment needs a pyproject.toml and a README and must build with uv build.
9
Do not start work for a bounty
The bounty sheet linked from Prime Intellect's posts says the program 'is closed and is not accepting new applications or bounty claims', and marks Open Access, Application-Only and the call for partners closed (read 12 November 2026).

No test to publish; a written RL Residency application for the paid route

Publishing to the Environments Hub has no entry test. The paid route, the RL Residency, is chosen from a written application: you describe your idea for novel RL environments, evals or experiments, your expertise and the compute you need, and add links to your profiles. Prime Intellect publishes no selection criteria, interview or acceptance rate; the form says only that it will reach out if it is interested.

Format

A short online form: email, a written proposal with your expertise and compute needs, profile links (X, GitHub, Hugging Face) and how you heard of Prime Intellect. No test, interview or deadline is published.

How to prepare

Name a specific idea for a novel RL environment, eval or experiment, the expertise you bring and the compute it needs: those are the form's required questions.
Link profiles that show finished work, such as a GitHub repository or an environment you have published on the Hub.
Aim at the areas Prime Intellect named when it opened Cohort II on 30 April 2026: autonomous AI research, RL for science, finance, legal and medical work, long-horizon evals and environments, complex coding environments, computer use and robotics.
Publish a working environment first: residents' work is reviewed as pull requests, and each environment must build with uv build.

Why people get rejected

Prime Intellect publishes no reasons for turning an application down; its form says only that it will reach out if it is interested.

How long it takes

Prime Intellect publishes no review time, deadline or next intake for the residency. It opened applications for Cohort II on 30 April 2026, and the application form says only that it will reach out if it is interested.

When you get paid

No page we read pays for publishing to the Hub. The bounties, which paid cash per accepted environment ($100 to $500 open to anyone, $1,000 to $5,000+ by application), are closed. The RL Residency offers a stipend, compute and research support, with no amount, schedule or payment method published, and Sprint prizes are compute credits. How often other platforms pay

Tips to get accepted

If you still hold a locked or in-review bounty, raise it in a comment on your pull request (the sheet's rule for ongoing PRs) or in the public #verifiers or #environment-hub Discord channels: the sheet says its closing notice does not resolve existing payouts or claims.
Keep money in your account before testing. One builder's week of measuring an environment on Prime Inference cost $9.01, and once the balance passed its overdraft floor, calls were refused with a 402 'insufficient_funds' error.
Top up only what you will use: the terms say prepaid credits expire 12 months after purchase and unused prepaid credits are non-refundable, apart from the exceptions they list.
Test before you push. The automated Environment Actions checks that used to run on every push have been removed.
Build on verifiers v1. Environments on the v0 API carry a Legacy tag on the Hub, and v0 is deprecated and being retired.
Declare Git dependencies in the PEP 508 form inside your dependencies list, not under [tool.uv.sources]: uv's sources section is not kept in the wheel, so installs from the Hub would lose it.

What isn't public

Prime Intellect never published how or when bounties were paid (payment method, schedule, tax forms or ID checks), and we found no builder's public account of being paid or of going unpaid.
The bounty sheet gives no closing date. A post on X on 6 December 2025 said the program 'stays open'; the sheet said it was closed when we read it on 4 and 12 November 2026.
The RL Residency's stipend amount, length, payment method, eligible countries and next intake are not published.
The older tab of the bounty sheet heads its amount column 'Bounty (x2 if GPU credits)', which suggests a bounty could be taken as twice its value in compute credits instead of cash; the sheet does not explain it.
The program's PR guidelines page on Notion, linked from the sheet, loaded no text for us, so its rules are not reflected here.
Prime Intellect publishes no total paid to outside builders. The 88 bounties and $34,800 we counted are what its sheet marks Done and lists as the bounty, not money shown as paid.
There are no worker ratings to go on: Trustpilot's page for primeintellect.ai is unclaimed and holds one review, from January 2025, and we found no Glassdoor page.

Sources (17)

Prime Intellect Terms of Service (last updated November 4, 2026)
Prime Intellect Docs: Environments Hub, Getting Started
Prime Intellect Docs: Environments Hub, Overview (verifiers v1, Environment Actions removed; read November 12, 2026)
Prime Intellect Docs: Create & Upload Environment
Prime Intellect Docs: CLI Overview
Prime Intellect Docs: Hosted Evaluations (billing modes)
Prime Intellect: Scaling Our Open-Source Environments Program (bounty tiers; October 27, 2025)
Prime Intellect Environments Program bounty sheet (closed notice, bounty statuses; read November 12, 2026)
Prime Intellect: Systematic Reward Hacking and Prime Sprints (May 20, 2026)
Prime Intellect: RL Residency application form (read November 12, 2026)
Prime Intellect on X, via Thread Reader: Join the RL Residency (September 3, 2025)
Prime Intellect on X: applications open for Cohort II of the residency (April 30, 2026)
GitHub: PrimeIntellect-ai/residency-environments, CONTRIBUTING.md
Prime Intellect jobs board on Ashby (37 roles, all full time; read November 12, 2026)
DEV Community: A week of measuring my RL environment billed $9.01 (September 2026)
Post on X: Prime Intellect's Environments Bounty Program stays open (December 6, 2025)
Trustpilot: primeintellect.ai (unclaimed, 1 review; read November 12, 2026)

Applying to Prime Intellect: questions

Does Prime Intellect pay for RL environments?

Not for publishing them. Its bounty program, which paid cash per accepted environment, is closed and takes no new claims or applications. The paid route left is the RL Residency, which gives accepted residents a stipend, compute and support from its research team.

Is the Prime Intellect bounty program still open?

No. Its bounty sheet says the program 'is closed and is not accepting new applications or bounty claims' and marks Open Access, Application-Only and the call for partners closed, without a closing date (read 12 November 2026).

How much did Prime Intellect bounties pay?

Open Access bounties, meant for first-time builders, were $100 to $500; Application-Only bounties, for experienced builders it approved, were $1,000 to $5,000+. Bounties were awarded on successful completion, and a reimplemented benchmark had to reproduce known evaluation scores.

What is the Prime Intellect RL Residency?

A program for grad students, independent builders and hackers, and part-time researchers building novel RL environments and evals, with compute for experiments, a stipend and hands-on support from Prime Intellect's research team. The stipend amount is not published.

How do I publish an environment to the Environments Hub?

Set a username on your profile, install the CLI with uv tool install prime, run prime login, create the module with uvx --from verifiers vf-init and your environment's name, and run prime env push in its folder. It is public unless you add --visibility=PRIVATE.

Does building on the Environments Hub cost money?

Testing can. Hosted evaluations use Prime Inference pricing for the chosen model by default, paid from your Prime account balance; with your own model endpoint, Prime bills the sandbox compute and your provider bills the tokens.

Does Prime Intellect hire contractors for environment work?

Its jobs board listed 37 roles on 12 November 2026, all full-time staff jobs, none contract or part-time.

Are Prime Sprints paid?

In compute credits, not cash. The first Sprint, on reward hacking (May 2026), ran approved jobs for free and offered $5K+ in credits as prizes to the most innovative projects.

How long does it take to hear back from Prime Intellect?

Does Prime Intellect have an assessment?

Yes: No test to publish; a written RL Residency application for the paid route. Publishing to the Environments Hub has no entry test. The paid route, the RL Residency, is chosen from a written application: you describe your idea for novel RL environments, evals or experiments, your expertise and the compute you need, and add links to your profiles. Prime Intellect publishes no selection criteria, interview or acceptance rate; the form says only that it will reach out if it is interested.

Does Prime Intellect have an interview?

Prime Intellect does not publish the format of its screening. How it screens: No test to publish; a written RL Residency application for the paid route. How other platforms screen.