validations for submission name

src/components/commons.py

@@ -37,7 +37,7 @@ def get_panel_header(header: str, subheader: str | None = None):
 
 def get_model_submission_accordion(app: gr.Blocks):
     with gr.Accordion(
-        "Feel happy with your agent? Make a submission!", elem_classes="model-submission-accordion", open=True
+        "🤗 Feel happy with your agent? Make a submission!", elem_classes="model-submission-accordion", open=True
     ):
         with gr.Row():
             model_name_input = gr.Textbox(label="Submission Name")
@@ -47,6 +47,13 @@ def get_model_submission_accordion(app: gr.Blocks):
             submit_btn = gr.Button("Submit", variant="primary", interactive=False)
 
         submit_status = gr.HTML(label="Submission Status")
+        gr.Markdown(
+            """**Submission Name Guidelines**
+            1. Must start with a letter.
+            2. Can only contain letters, numbers, underscores, and hyphens.
+            3. Cannot contain white spaces or other special characters.
+            """
+        )
 
     def check_user_login(profile: gr.OAuthProfile | None):
         if profile is not None:

src/submission/submit.py

@@ -2,6 +2,7 @@ import glob
 import json
 import logging
 import os
+import re
 import traceback
 from datetime import datetime, timedelta, timezone
 
@@ -124,6 +125,17 @@ def create_submission(
     return submission
 
 
+def validate_model_name(model_name: str):
+    # check if model_name has no white spaces, no special characters apart from _ and -
+    if " " in model_name:
+        return False, "Model name cannot contain spaces."
+    if not re.match(r"^[a-zA-Z0-9_-]+$", model_name):
+        return False, "Model name can only contain letters, numbers, underscores, and hyphens."
+    if not re.match(r"^[a-zA-Z]", model_name):
+        return False, "Model name must start with a letter."
+    return True, ""
+
+
 def submit_model(
     model_name: str,
     description: str,
@@ -156,7 +168,13 @@ def submit_model(
         )
 
     if f"{username}/{model_name}" in get_user_submission_names(competition_type, profile):
-        return styled_error(f"'{model_name}' already exists. Please use a different name for your submission.")
+        return styled_error(
+            f"Submission Error!<br>'{model_name}' already exists. Please use a different name for your submission."
+        )
+
+    is_valid, error_msg = validate_model_name(model_name)
+    if not is_valid:
+        return styled_error(f"Submission Error! Invalid model name '{model_name}'.<br>{error_msg}")
 
     try:
         submission = create_submission(