The entire workshop should take the average student hacker about an hour to complete. Needless to say this isn't a lot of time. As a result, we want to ensure we focus on the skills we want a hacker to learn. The hacker should not build everything from scratch unless it's possible to be completed within the time frame highlighted above.
Any starter code can be provided as a GitHub template. By using a template rather than a fork, a disconnect is created between the starter code and the hacker's project. You can add the starter code to the same repository which hosts the workshop.
We want to limit the setup required to get started whenever possible. Having a hacker install Docker, configure a container, and connecting to a service will eat into the short amount of time alloted for the workshop. Unless a service or tool is absolutely necessary we should avoid it.
If there is anything which needs to be installed, provide any links or other instructions necessary.