Launching today
The Incident Challenge
Production Debugging Games for Software Engineers
84 followers
Production Debugging Games for Software Engineers
84 followers
Compete in realistic incident simulations where you find the root cause, fix the system, and race the leaderboard.
The Incident Challenge
Hey Product Hunt!
I’m excited to share The Incident Challenge with you.
The idea started from something we kept seeing: AI can write code now. A lot of code.
But the moment production breaks, the hard part usually isn’t writing the fix.
It’s understanding what actually happened. Where to look. What to ignore. Which weird detail matters.
That’s the (human) skill we wanted to turn into a sport. So we built The Incident Challenge: a production debugging game for engineers.
You get dropped into a realistic broken system. What you get:
Logs, code, configs, docs, architecture diagrams, misleading symptoms, and a ticking clock.
Your job: Find the root cause. Fix it. Deploy the solution. Beat the leaderboard.
And yes, you can use AI agents.
But the challenge is designed so AI alone usually isn’t enough.
It might help you move faster, but you still need real engineering instincts to win.
The idea pretty much exploded on reddit, and today we have more than 300 devs participating.
Some people solve the same incident in minutes. Others take much longer.
That gap is exactly what makes it fun.
The challenge is live now, so feel free to give it spin, and maybe you might win!
Would genuinely love your feedback, ideas for future incidents, and brutal honesty on whether this feels like something engineers would want to play.
Come debug with us 🤘
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@avi_ct 🚒 🪲
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Built this because debugging under pressure is a skill, and most engineers only practice it when prod is on fire.
I've sat in too many incidents where smart engineers froze - not because they lacked knowledge, but because they hadn't practiced navigating chaos under pressure.
The Incident Challenge is a production incident CTF you can actually enjoy. Logs, architecture, code, docs, clues - we designed each one to feel like a real system that actually broke. Because it did. We based these on real patterns.
Bring AI, bring your terminal, bring whatever you want.
The system doesn't care how you solve it - just whether you can.
FIND THE 🪲
The Incident Challenge
@shayliv This challenge is HARD. feels like a real incident.
Finally, a coding challenge that actually mirrors real engineering. Writing code is the easy part; tracing a race condition through misleading docs is the real sport. Stoked to try this out and see if my instincts are as good as I think they are. Good Job 👏
The Incident Challenge
@vikramp7470 Thank you Vikram! Exactly.
Improving as an engineer looks very different now. The best challenges can’t just be about writing code anymore, because AI is already getting pretty good at that.
They need to test what AI still struggles with: understanding systems, dependencies, architecture, and knowing where to look when something breaks. That’s what we want The Incident Challenge to keep testing.
P.S. the challenge today, is pretty hard - good luck!
mailX by mailwarm
Realistic incident simulations sound like a fun way to actually practice being on call without ruining your day. Congrats on your launch!!
The Incident Challenge
@thamibenjelloun Yes! Happy you like it