Take-home assessments overview

A take-home assessment is an interview a candidate completes on their own time, in their own private workspace, instead of live with an interviewer. You invite a candidate by email, they solve your problem in a real sandboxed workspace on a timer, the assessment freezes when they submit, and you review the code, the session recording, and how they got there.

Where a live interview is a shared workspace you drive together in real time, a take-home is asynchronous: the candidate works alone, and you review afterward.

The shape of a take-home

1. Create the assessment. Start from a workspace, apply a problem (starter files, prompt, rubric), and turn on take-home mode. This workspace is the source assessment.
2. Invite candidates by email. Each invite is private to one address. See Inviting candidates.
3. The candidate accepts and starts. Accepting clones the assessment into a private workspace only that candidate and your reviewers can see. They click Start when ready, and the clock begins. See The candidate experience.
4. They work, optionally with an AI assistant. If you enabled it, the candidate has a budget-capped AI assistant in the workspace, and every prompt is recorded for you.
5. The assessment submits. A timed assessment auto-submits at the deadline; a due-date assessment is submitted by the candidate (late submissions are flagged). On submit the workspace freezes read-only.
6. You review and score. Browse the submitted files, replay the recording, read the AI transcript, and score against the rubric, with an AI-drafted first pass if you want one. See Reviewing submissions and Grading.

Source assessment vs candidate clone

The assessment you build and invite from is the source. When a candidate accepts, Typelets makes them a private clone of it to work in. You never have to manage those clones directly: the source assessment is where you send invites, watch submission states, and review every candidate’s work. Clones are hidden from your workspace list and exist only as submissions of their source.

What candidates can and cannot see

Candidates see the prompt, their own files, and public test cases. They never see the rubric, hidden test cases (beyond pass/fail), the reference solution, other candidates, or any scores. See Sharing & roles.

Next: Inviting candidates.