BigCodeArena

BigCodeArena

Hosts a Gradio arena app from the bigcode group, with code for chat, completions, voting, Elo scores and ranking, plus a sandbox folder. For people who want to see how such an arena is built.

Made by bigcode on Hugging Face. These notes are Mindket's, written from its Space page and README; the app's own files and license are on Hugging Face.

About

What it is: BigCodeArena is a Gradio app from the bigcode group. Its file names point to an arena for comparing model answers, with separate code for chat state, completions, conversations, voting, Elo scores and rankings. A sandbox folder sits beside them. The README points to a paper on arXiv for the background.

Who it suits: It suits developers and researchers who want a working example of a model arena, and anyone who wants to try the hosted app in a browser.

Industry | Who uses it | How they use it | Example
Software | Developers | Read the Python files to see how an arena app is split into parts | Study how votes feed the Elo and ranking code
Research | AI researchers | Open the hosted app and look at how model answers are compared | Read the linked paper next to the app
Education | Students of machine learning | Follow the code for Elo scoring in a small project | Run a copy and read elo_calculation.py

You can skip it if you only want a finished leaderboard to read, since this Space is the app and its code.

Where to use it:

• A web browser: open the Space page on Hugging Face. It runs on cpu-basic hardware there.
• Windows, macOS or Linux: run a copy with Python 3.12.10.

Use case | Who | What they get back
Try the hosted app | Anyone | The arena interface in the browser
Study the structure | Developers | Separate files for chat, voting, Elo scores and ranking
Run a private copy | Developers | A local app started with python app.py

How to set it up: The hosted page needs nothing from you. A local copy needs these things first.

• Python 3.12.10 on Windows, macOS or Linux.
• pip, which installs the packages.

1. Install the huggingface_hub package with pip.
2. Download the Space's files into a folder with the hf command.
3. Move into that folder.
4. Install Gradio 5.44.1, then the packages listed in requirements.txt.
5. Start the app with Python.

pip install -U huggingface_hub
hf download bigcode/arena --repo-type space --local-dir arena
cd arena
pip install gradio==5.44.1
pip install -r requirements.txt
python app.py

How to use it: Open the Space page, or start your copy with the last command above, and use the app that appears. The repository gives little beyond its file names, so the rest is learned by trying the interface.

Tool | What it does
app.py | Starts the Gradio app
api_config.yaml | A configuration file that sits at the top of the repository
chat_state.py | Code named for the state of a chat
voting.py | Code named for voting
elo_calculation.py | Code named for Elo score calculation
ranking.py | Code named for ranking

Example: You open the Space page in your browser. The Gradio interface of the arena loads on cpu-basic hardware, and you can look around it. In a local copy, the same interface starts from python app.py.

For newcomers and experts: If you are new, open the hosted page and look at how it is laid out. Nothing needs installing. Once you are curious about the code, download a copy and open the Python files one at a time.

If you know the field, the code is split by job, with chat state, completion, conversation, voting, Elo calculation and ranking each in its own file. The Space uses Gradio 5.44.1 on Python 3.12.10 and runs on cpu-basic, which has no GPU. The repository does not say where model calls are made.

Open the Space or run app.py
Gradio serves the arena interface
You use it in the browser

Good to know: The repository holds 20 files in all, and the README itself is short.

• License: apache-2
• Cost to run: none named, though an api_config.yaml file sits in the repository
• Data it reaches: none named

On Hugging Face, 13 November 2026

• Likes: 39
• Built with: gradio
• License: apache-2.0

Links

• Space: https://huggingface.co/spaces/bigcode/arena
• Files: https://huggingface.co/spaces/bigcode/arena/tree/main

Try it

Open the Space in your browser, or copy it to your own Hugging Face account from its page. Nothing in this kit runs by itself.