Sourced to vendor docs

Is HackerRank Proctored? What It Actually Records

Short answer

Only if the employer turns it on. Tab and copy-paste tracking are on by default. Secure Mode adds full-screen lockdown in the browser. Proctor Mode asks you to share your entire screen and takes screenshots every 15 seconds plus webcam images. Desktop App Mode installs a native app.

HackerRank is a technical assessment platform. Employers build a test out of coding, database, multiple-choice and project questions, send a candidate a link, and read a report afterwards. The candidate side runs in a browser — except in the newest mode, where it runs in a native application the candidate installs.

10

Controls documented

5 recorded, 3 flagged only, 2 blocked.

  • RecordedAn artefact is stored and a reviewer can look at it later.
  • Flagged onlyAn event is noted on the report. Nothing is stored to look at.
  • BlockedThe action is prevented rather than observed.
Employer opt-in
8 of 10
Last checked
August 2026
Outside the browser

The test is in a tab. The answer isn't.

Unless Desktop App Mode is on, a HackerRank test is a web page. Stealth Interview runs outside it, in a desktop window set to be excluded from screen capture.

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What it covers on HackerRank, and what it doesn't
On this page13 sections

What HackerRank can see at all

  • Every copy and every paste, including the text that was pasted
  • How often and how long you leave the test window
  • Whether you exit full-screen mode
  • How many monitors are connected, throughout the test
  • Periodic screenshots of your system, when Proctor Mode is on
  • Webcam images, when the test collects them
  • Similarity between your submission and other candidates' code

Three modes, and the employer picks

HackerRank does not have a single proctoring switch. Its Test Integrity page lists three modes that stack: Secure Mode runs the test in a controlled browser environment; Proctor Mode adds AI screenshot analysis, plagiarism detection and webcam anomaly detection on top of it; and HackerRank Desktop App Mode adds operating-system-level monitoring on top of that, with the candidate installing a native application.

The practical consequence is that "is HackerRank proctored" has no general answer. The same platform can be a plain browser tab with a paste counter, or a locked-down native app that closes other programs. You find out which one you have during the onboarding flow, because each mode asks for different permissions before the timer starts.

What Proctor Mode captures once it is running

Proctor Mode's onboarding checks your operating system and browser, has you acknowledge a list of prohibited actions, and then asks for webcam access, a single-monitor check and screen-sharing access. HackerRank's page states plainly that the system prompts candidates to share their entire screen.

From then on, screenshots are taken every 15 seconds. When something looks off — window switching, a full-screen exit — the interval tightens to five seconds so the report has context around the event. Where the test collects personal information, webcam images are captured every five seconds and displayed on a synchronised timeline next to the screenshots.

The screenshots are not just stored, they are read. HackerRank describes a model that looks for tutorial websites, answer-sharing platforms, GitHub repositories hosting leaked solutions, and external AI coding assistants that are not part of HackerRank's own IDE.

Desktop App Mode is a different kind of thing entirely

Everything above is a web page asking a browser for permissions. Desktop App Mode is not. Candidates download a lightweight HackerRank application for Windows or macOS, grant it system permissions, and close other applications before the test — manually, or with a Force Close All Apps button.

During the test HackerRank says the application detects and closes other programs the candidate tries to open, prevents screen sharing and screenshots, blocks remote access sharing, refuses to run on a virtual machine, and checks continuously for additional monitors and screen mirroring. Its documentation names specific tools it blocks, including Cluely and Ultracode.

This is the honest headline for anyone weighing up assistive software: a native lockdown application is a completely different threat model from a browser reading a video frame, and it is a mode HackerRank documents and ships.

What is recorded, and what is only flagged

An artefact a reviewer can open later is a different thing from an event counted on a report, and both are different from an action the platform simply prevents. Every control HackerRank documents, tagged and sourced:

  • Copy/paste tracking

    RecordedAlways on

    On by default, with no setup. HackerRank's documentation says the action is recorded automatically and the pasted content appears in the candidate's test report, with a Copy-Paste Frequency column in the CSV export.

    HackerRank — Test Integrity

  • Tab proctoring

    Flagged onlyAlways on

    Also on by default. It tracks how often and for how long you leave the test window, and surfaces that as Out of Window Duration and Number of Window Exits columns on the report.

    HackerRank — Test Integrity

  • Secure Mode

    BlockedEmployer opts in

    A controlled browser environment. HackerRank describes it as enforcing full-screen mode, blocking copy and paste, preventing the use of multiple monitors, and alerting when a candidate switches tabs. Violations are logged on the report.

    HackerRank — Secure Mode

  • Screen sharing permission (Proctor Mode)

    RecordedEmployer opts in

    Proctor Mode is an AI add-on that includes everything Secure Mode does. HackerRank's page states that the system prompts candidates to share their entire screen, and that screen sharing permission lets it verify that no unauthorised applications or resources are being used.

    HackerRank — Proctor Mode

  • Session screenshots

    RecordedEmployer opts in

    Screenshots of the candidate's system are captured every 15 seconds, dropping to every five seconds when the system detects something like window switching or a full-screen exit. A model analyses them for tutorial sites, answer-sharing platforms, leaked GitHub solutions and external AI coding assistants.

    HackerRank — Proctor Mode

  • Session replay

    RecordedEmployer opts in

    The report carries a timeline-based, video-style view described as a recording of the candidate's test session across the full browser screen, with every critical test event listed and clickable to its timestamp.

    HackerRank — Review Integrity Issues in Proctor Mode

  • Webcam capture and image analysis

    RecordedEmployer opts in

    Where the test collects personal information, webcam images are captured every five seconds. Image Analysis flags multiple faces, secondary faces at different times, no face, and static image projections.

    HackerRank — Image Proctoring and Image Analysis

  • Object and gaze detection

    Flagged onlyEmployer opts in

    Proctor Mode flags mobile phones and tablets in the webcam feed, including partially visible ones, and analyses eye and head movement for repeated patterns of looking away and returning to type. HackerRank says only high-confidence patterns are flagged.

    HackerRank — Proctor Mode

  • Conversation detection in the code editor

    Flagged onlyEmployer opts in

    Patterns where a candidate types and then deletes content in the editor — including regional languages written in English — are flagged for review as possible external communication.

    HackerRank — Proctor Mode

  • Desktop App Mode

    BlockedEmployer opts in

    A native application for Windows and macOS with operating-system-level monitoring. HackerRank's page says it blocks other applications during the test, prevents screen sharing and screenshots, prevents the test running on a virtual machine, and checks for screen mirroring.

    HackerRank — Desktop App Mode

What HackerRank's documentation does not say

The gaps are as useful as the features, and they are the part nobody else writes down. Where HackerRank states a limit, it is quoted below. Where it is silent, the entry says it is silent — undocumented is not the same as absent, and we are not going to present it as one.

  • Secure Mode is browser-level. HackerRank's Secure Mode page describes full-screen enforcement, copy/paste blocking, monitor counting and tab alerts — it does not describe inspecting the operating system or the applications running on it.
  • None of HackerRank's integrity pages describe recording microphone audio. Webcam, screenshots and screen activity are named; a microphone is not.
  • Proctor Mode is an AI add-on and Desktop App Mode sits on top of it, so neither is present unless the employer has bought and enabled them.
  • Proctor Mode cannot be enabled on tests created before HackerRank's July 2025 release, and once candidates have started a published test it cannot be switched off.
  • HackerRank's proctoring documentation covers tests run through HackerRank for Work. It does not describe proctoring on the public practice site.

What candidates get wrong about HackerRank

The most common mistake is assuming a HackerRank link means a webcam. It usually does not. Copy/paste tracking and tab proctoring are the only things on by default, and both produce numbers on a report rather than pictures. If the employer bought no add-on, nothing is watching you.

The second is treating a tab switch as a verdict. Tab proctoring produces two columns — Out of Window Duration and Number of Window Exits — and HackerRank's own guidance frames integrity signals as evidence for a human to review, not an automatic fail. Reading documentation in another tab looks identical to reading an answer in another tab, and a recruiter has to decide which it was.

The third is the opposite error: assuming that because the test looks like an ordinary web page, nothing beyond the tab is visible. In Proctor Mode it is a full-screen share with a model reading the frames, and the screenshots are described as screenshots of the candidate's system.

Worth knowing before you sit down

  • Proctor Mode assigns a final integrity result of High or Medium — there is no clean 'pass' state once it has flagged something.
  • Enabling Proctor Mode turns on AI Plagiarism Detection and Image Analysis by default. Image Analysis can be disabled by the employer; HackerRank recommends against it.
  • The multiple-monitor check runs continuously, not just at the start. Connecting a second display mid-test is flagged.
  • Copy/paste tracking applies to Coding, Subjective and Sentence Completion questions, and the pasted text itself is readable in the report's Timeline view.
  • In Desktop App Mode a screenshot you manage to take comes out blank, per HackerRank's own description of the feature.

What this means if you use an AI assistant

When a page captures your entire screen, what lands in the capture is decided by the operating system and by how the capture is made, not by the assessment platform. So the covered list below is a statement about a capture. It is not a statement about HackerRank's review, which has inputs that never look at a screen.

Desktop App Mode removes the question altogether. It is a native process with system permissions whose documented job is to find and close other applications, and HackerRank's page names specific tools by name. No screen-capture behaviour is relevant to a check like that. Which tools any given build of that application recognises is knowable only to HackerRank — the absence of a name from a support article is not evidence of anything, in either direction, and we are not going to read it as such about our own product or anyone else's.

Two of HackerRank's signals never look at your screen at all. Gaze detection watches your eyes for a look-away-then-type rhythm, and conversation detection watches for text typed and deleted in the editor. Both are inferences about behaviour, and they are indifferent to what software produced it.

What Stealth Interview documents about itself

  • A desktop app for macOS and Windows, not a browser extension.
  • Not captured by screen-sharing or meeting software.
  • Reads the coding problem from a screenshot and returns a working solution in real time.
  • Step-by-step explanations with time and space complexity.
  • Live transcription of the interviewer's audio.
  • Multiple AI models, driven by keyboard shortcuts.

What Stealth Interview covers on HackerRank

Our side of the record, applied to HackerRank. A covered line is a statement about screen capture, never about detection: it says nothing about what HackerRank, its reviewers or a camera can tell. The second list is the one to read twice.

Covered

  • Proctor Mode's screen capture. HackerRank has you share your entire screen and takes screenshots of your system every 15 seconds. The app's window is set to be excluded from screen capture on macOS and Windows, so a browser capture should leave it out.

    HackerRank — Proctor Mode

Not covered

  • Desktop App Mode. HackerRank's own native app is documented to close other applications, and it names tools it blocks. That is not a browser round: plan on Stealth Interview not running beside it.

  • Secure Mode and focus. Full screen is enforced in the browser, and tab proctoring always reports time out of the test window. Showing the app's window takes keyboard focus off the test, which a browser can report as leaving it.

  • The webcam. Image analysis and gaze detection read the camera, which sees you and the room, not the screen.

  • The editor record. Pastes are stored with their text, and typing then deleting in the editor is flagged as possible outside communication.

  • Untested setups. The exclusion is an operating-system setting, and we haven't tested it in every browser and OS version a HackerRank test runs on. Don't treat any one setup as confirmed.

HackerRank proctoring: common questions

Is HackerRank proctored by default?

No. HackerRank's built-in features are copy/paste tracking and tab proctoring, which are on with no setup. Secure Mode, Proctor Mode and Desktop App Mode are all opt-in, and the last two are part of HackerRank's AI add-on, so the employer must have bought them.

Does HackerRank record your screen?

In Proctor Mode, yes. HackerRank's documentation describes a session replay that records the test session across the full browser screen, plus screenshots of the candidate's system every 15 seconds. Without Proctor Mode there is no screen capture at all.

Does HackerRank use your webcam?

Only when the employer enables Image Proctoring or Proctor Mode, and only after you grant webcam access. Where it is on, HackerRank says images are captured every five seconds and analysed for multiple faces, secondary faces, no face and static image projections.

How does HackerRank detect cheating?

By combining signals rather than by any single check: pasted content, time spent out of the test window, screenshot analysis for external tools and leaked solutions, webcam analysis for extra faces and phones, gaze patterns, typing-and-deleting in the editor, and code similarity against other submissions.

Can HackerRank see other applications on my computer?

It depends on the mode. Secure Mode is browser-level and its documentation describes no inspection of your operating system. Proctor Mode analyses screenshots of your system. Desktop App Mode is a native application that HackerRank says detects and closes other programs during the test.

Does HackerRank flag tab switching?

Yes, always. Tab proctoring is a built-in feature that needs no setup, and it reports how often and for how long you left the test window. In Secure Mode and above, an attempt to leave also triggers a warning on screen and is logged as an integrity event.

Will I know if a HackerRank test is proctored?

Yes. Every mode above Secure Mode has an onboarding flow that asks you to acknowledge the test rules and grant permissions — webcam, single monitor, screen sharing — before the timer starts. Desktop App Mode additionally requires you to download and install an application.

Sources

Every page below is published by HackerRank or its parent company. Last checked in August 2026; vendors change these features often, so check the date on the page you land on.

Product home: HackerRank

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