this is such a good idea. debugging under pressure is one of those things engineers mostly learn the hard way, so turning it into a repeatable game feels very useful.
also like that AI is allowed but not enough on its own. that makes it feel much closer to real incidents. curious to try it and see how the misleading clues are designed :)
Realistic incident simulations sound like a fun way to actually practice being on call without ruining your day. Congrats on your launch!!
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 👏
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 🪲
About The Incident Challenge on Product Hunt
“Production Debugging Games for Software Engineers”
The Incident Challenge launched on Product Hunt on May 25th, 2026 and earned 111 upvotes and 10 comments, placing #12 on the daily leaderboard. Compete in realistic incident simulations where you find the root cause, fix the system, and race the leaderboard.
The Incident Challenge was featured in Artificial Intelligence (469.4k followers), Tech (624.2k followers) and Games (98.5k followers) on Product Hunt. Together, these topics include over 283.6k products, making this a competitive space to launch in.
Who hunted The Incident Challenge?
The Incident Challenge was hunted by Avi (Avihai) CT. A “hunter” on Product Hunt is the community member who submits a product to the platform — uploading the images, the link, and tagging the makers behind it. Hunters typically write the first comment explaining why a product is worth attention, and their followers are notified the moment they post. Around 79% of featured launches on Product Hunt are self-hunted by their makers, but a well-known hunter still acts as a signal of quality to the rest of the community. See the full all-time top hunters leaderboard to discover who is shaping the Product Hunt ecosystem.
Want to see how The Incident Challenge stacked up against nearby launches in real time? Check out the live launch dashboard for upvote speed charts, proximity comparisons, and more analytics.
Avi (Avihai) CT
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 🤘