At the beginning of the audit, the protocol team will be added to a Discord channel with all auditors competing. This is designed to facilitate any Q&A between the auditors and protocol team as they try to better understand the system. Protocol teams are not mandated to engage with the auditor Q&A / discussion, however, we have historically found this type of dialogue to improve the quality & outcomes of the audit and is encouraged.
Throughout the contest, auditors will submit issues into a private GitHub, and unfortunately the protocol team will not be able to view the issues until the contest is complete. This policy is in place in order to maintain the integrity of audit contests and make sure that protocol teams don't "leak" exploits to other contest participants (or submit the exploits anonymously themselves).