Quantum Challenge Grader

Grading client for the IBM Quantum Challenge grading service.

Requirements

• IBM Quantum Platform account
• Python 3.10 or later, with a Jupyter Notebook or JupyterLab environment
• Qiskit 2.x (installed automatically as a dependency)

Installation

Install the grading client into your Python environment:

pip install qc-grader

Authentication

The grader authenticates with your IBM Quantum Platform API key. You can provide it in either of two ways.

Option 1 — Save your account (recommended)

If you already use QiskitRuntimeService and have saved your account by following the setup instructions, the grader reuses that saved account automatically — no extra configuration needed.

To save your account:

from qiskit_ibm_runtime import QiskitRuntimeService

QiskitRuntimeService.save_account(
    channel="ibm_quantum_platform",
    token="<YOUR_API_KEY>",
    set_as_default=True,
    overwrite=True,
)

Your API key is available on your IBM Quantum Platform account page.

Option 2 — Set the QC_API_KEY environment variable

From a terminal, before launching Jupyter:

export QC_API_KEY=your_api_key

Alternatively, run this at the top of a notebook (re-run whenever you start/restart the kernel):

%set_env QC_API_KEY=your_api_key

Note: You can confirm the environment variable is set by running the following in a notebook cell:

import os
print(os.getenv("QC_API_KEY"))

Usage

1. Open an exercise notebook for the challenge you are participating in.

2. Run the notebook cells, completing the exercises. Each exercise has a grading function that you import and call with your solution. Grading functions follow the pattern grade_<module>_ex<n> and live under qc_grader.challenges.<challenge>. For example:

   from qc_grader.challenges.<challenge> import grade_<module>_ex1
   
   grade_<module>_ex1(answer_1)

   Replace <challenge> with the challenge you are working on (e.g. fallfest_2026, qgss_2026), and <module>/ex<n> with the exercise you are submitting. The specific imports are given in each notebook.

3. To review how many exercises you have completed so far, use the check_progress helper exposed by each challenge:

   from qc_grader.challenges.<challenge> import check_progress
   
   check_progress()

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for development setup (uv, just), linting, tests, and the release process.