DEV Community: Jess Lee

What was your win this week!?

Jess Lee — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 04:00:00 +0000

👋👋👋👋
Looking back on your week -- what was something you're proud of?
All wins count -- big or small 🎉

Examples of 'wins' include:

Getting a promotion!
Starting a new project
Fixing a tricky bug
Started something you've been "about to start" for two months

Happy Friday! 🏁

DEV’s Big Summer Bug Smash is now LIVE! Share $5,000 in cash prizes, skateboards, and more across 20+ winners. 🐛🐞🪲

Jess Lee — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 19:10:14 +0000

Today is National Be Nice to Bugs Day in the U.S. and we’re thrilled to launch our Big Summer Bug Smash powered by Sentry. This smashing good time invites you to identify your biggest rockstar bugs and treat them to an epic grand finale.

Whether you’re optimizing the performance of your newest side project or reminiscing on an old #hugops story, we want to hear about it! There are prompts for both builders and writers and a $5,000 prize pool up for grabs, including exclusive Sentry skateboards!

Scroll for a preview of our prompts and prize categories.

Two Ways to Join

Clear the Lineup

Some bugs love the spotlight. Clear them off the stage by submitting a definitive bug fix or performance optimization in an existing codebase. We want to see the exact code changes you made so be sure to include your PR or code snippets. No new features, typos, or documentation fixes allowed!

Clear the Lineup Submission Template

Smash Stories

Share the legendary tale of a chaotic bug you caught or a clever performance optimization you previously pulled off. Dive into the technical details of how you made the software more resilient, and celebrate the wins that brought harmony back to your codebase.

Smash Stories Submission Template

Prize Categories

We'll have 20+ winners across five different prize categories for this challenge:

Clear the Lineup: Awarded to the most impactful and well executed bug fixes or optimizations in an existing codebase.
Smash Stories: Awarded to the best write-ups of a chaotic bug you caught or a clever performance optimization you pulled off.
Best Use of Sentry: Awarded to the best Clear the Lineup submissions that utilized Sentry to improve an application.
Best Use of Google AI: Awarded to the best Clear the Lineup submissions that utilized Google AI to improve an application.
Runner-Up: Awarded to outstanding submissions across all prompts that demonstrate exceptional impact and quality.

Winners will share from a $5,000 prize pool. In addition to cash prize, Best Use of Sentry winners will also receive a Limited Edition Sentry Skateboard!

Pro Tip: since prize category winners are drawn from a smaller pool of submissions, your odds of taking home a prize are meaningfully higher.

All participants with a valid submission will receive a completion badge on their DEV profile.

How To Participate

Step 1: Pick Your Prompt

Choose between Clear the Lineup (submit a real bug fix or performance PR) or Smash Stories (write up a legendary debugging win). You're welcome to participate in both — each submission is judged independently.

Step 2: Publish Your Submission

Each prompt has a dedicated submission template prefilled with the required #bugsmash challenge tag — we recommend reviewing it before you start so you know exactly what to include.

If you're participating in a prize category, be sure to fill out the additional information required.

Resources

To help folks get started with Sentry, the Sentry team is holding a live demo on DEV on July 30 at 11am PT/2pm ET.

Explore Sentry and add any questions you have ahead of the stream to this post so they'll answer your questions live:

Kyle TechSquidTV for Sentry

Jul 14

Chasing the Sentry prize for DEV's Summer Bug Smash? Let us know what questions you have.

#bugsmash #devchallenge #performance #monitoring

1 min read

For a full list of resources, head over to the official Bug Smash landing page:

Important Dates

July 14: Summer Bug Smash begins!
July 30 at 11am PT: Getting started with Sentry: Live demo and Q&A
August 23: Submissions due at 11:59 PM PDT
September 17: Winners Announced

Questions about the challenge? Drop them in the comments below.

We can't wait to see your smashing submissions — good luck!

What was your win this week?!

Jess Lee — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 13:00:00 +0000

👋👋👋👋
Looking back on your week -- what was something you're proud of?
All wins count -- big or small 🎉

Examples of 'wins' include:

Getting a promotion!
Starting a new project
Fixing a tricky bug
Cleared your inbox below 50 unread (which felt like defusing a bomb) 📬

Happy Friday!

Join our DEV Weekend Challenge: Passion Edition — $1,000 in Prizes Across FIVE Winners! Submissions Due July 13 at 6:59 AM UTC.

Jess Lee — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 02:00:00 +0000

Hello! We're kicking off another DEV Weekend Challenge, a short bite-sized challenge planned to fit into your weekend. We know the submission window is tight, so we've set the timing to ensure that no matter where you are in the world, you'll have the majority of your Saturday and Sunday to participate.

We'll select one overall winner and four prize category winners who utilize a specific technology as part of their challenge submission.

Let's get to it!

Our Prompt ❤️‍🔥

This weekend, we welcome you to build something inspired by passion.

Passion is the fire that drives us. It’s the rivalry that pushes competitors to greatness, the love that fuels late-night side projects, the devotion fans pour into their teams, their fandoms, their crafts. With the World Cup ongoing, passion for the game is everywhere: in the stands, in the streets, in living rooms around the world.

Please interpret this prompt however you'd like. A tribute to a rivalry (sporting or otherwise)? A tool for tracking the projects or hobbies you love? A World Cup companion app for the truly devoted fan? Something that captures obsession, romance, or team spirit? Any angle is fair game!

Prize Categories

Four prize categories are up for grabs for participants who incorporate a specific technology into their project. You don't need to use any of these tools to be eligible for our overall winner spots, but if you're curious about any of the tech, this is a great excuse to give one a try.

Best use of Snowflake
Best use of Solana
Best use of ElevenLabs
Best use of Google AI

Pro Tip: Since prize category winners are drawn from a smaller pool of submissions, your odds of taking home a prize are meaningfully higher.

Note: You may use multiple technologies in a single submission to qualify for multiple categories, but participants are limited to one win per challenge.

Judging Criteria

All submissions will be judged on the following:

Relevance to Theme: Does the project clearly connect to the challenge theme?
Creativity: Is the concept original or is it an interesting take on a familiar problem?
Technical Execution: Is the project functional, well-built, and easy to use?
Writing Quality: Is the submission post clearly written and engaging?
Use of Prize Category Technology (optional): If pursuing a prize category, does the submission meaningfully incorporate the chosen technology?

Prizes

Five winners will each take home:

$200 USD
DEV++ Membership
Exclusive DEV badge

All participants with a valid submission will receive a completion badge.

How To Participate

Publish a post on DEV using the submission template below and the #weekendchallenge tag. Your post should give us an overview of what you made, the inspiration behind it, and a demo of your project.

Weekend Challenge Submission Template

Please review our judging criteria, rules, guidelines, and FAQ page before submitting so you understand our participation guidelines and official contest rules such as eligibility requirements.

Need Help?

Check out our official challenge page for resources to help you get started with tech from our prize category partners.

Important Dates

Launch Time: July 10, 2026 2:00 AM UTC
Submissions Due: July 13, 2026 6:59 AM UTC
Here's what that looks like across a few timezones:

Timezone	Launch Time (Local)	Submissions Due (Local)
PDT	Thursday, Jul 9 at 7:00 PM	Sunday, Jul 12 at 11:59 PM
EDT	Thursday, Jul 9 at 10:00 PM	Monday, Jul 13 at 2:59 AM
GMT	Friday, Jul 10 at 2:00 AM	Monday, Jul 13 at 6:59 AM
CEST	Friday, Jul 10 at 4:00 AM	Monday, Jul 13 at 8:59 AM
IST	Friday, Jul 10 at 7:30 AM	Monday, Jul 13 at 12:29 PM
JST	Friday, Jul 10 at 11:00 AM	Monday, Jul 13 at 3:59 PM
AEST	Friday, Jul 10 at 12:00 PM	Monday, Jul 13 at 4:59 PM

Winners will be announced on Thursday, July 30.

Questions about the challenge? Drop them in the comments below.

Good luck!!

Congrats to the June Solstice Game Jam Winners!

Jess Lee — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 20:23:01 +0000

We are so excited to announce the winners of the June Solstice Game Jam, our celebration of the solstice and everything June represents: Pride, Juneteenth, light and darkness, the passage of time, and the birth month of Alan Turing himself.

You all took our intentionally broad prompt and ran with it in every direction: ciphers, reverse Turing tests, shadow blasters, and multi-colored platformers. Judging was difficult, and we're grateful to everyone who built, published, and played along.

Thank you to everyone who participated. Now, let's celebrate our winners!

🎉 Congratulations To…

Overall Prompt Winners

June Solstice Game Jam Submission

LJDaniel

Jun 21

The Longest Night: break four ciphers before sundown, then answer Turing's question

#devchallenge #gamechallenge #gamedev

5 min read

@newdawnera built The Longest Night, a moody puzzle game where players race against the clock to solve ciphers while speaking to a mysterious companion. Simple but elegantly executed, this one’s writing quality carried it across the finish line, building a whole world with very few words.

June Solstice Game Jam Submission

thehwang

Jun 19

Alan's Garden: a puzzle game where flowers are tiny programs

#devchallenge #gamechallenge #gamedev

4 min read

@thehwang's Alan's Garden was a wholly unique entry with nothing else quite like it in the submission pool. You don't place flowers, you teach the garden a rule and watch the pattern grow itself, a puzzle built directly on Turing's morphogenesis research. Another simple, yet addicting, concept that had us clicking away for maybe a bit too long.

June Solstice Game Jam Submission

Mir Shah

Jun 20

Among Liars -> The 7th Player Isn't Human

#devchallenge #gamechallenge #gamedev #amongliars

6 min read

@mirshah12's Among Liars seamlessly integrates the jam's themes into its core game mechanics: a social deduction game where six humans must sniff out a hidden Gemini-powered seventh player. Built on Supabase Realtime, with a sleek black-and-white presentation, this one is a blast with a group of friends.

Best Ode to Alan Turing Winner

June Solstice Game Jam Submission

İclal Doğan

Jun 20

RESIDUES: A Terminal Game Inside the Dying Mind of Alan Turing

#devchallenge #gamechallenge #gamedev

5 min read

@iclaldogan's Residues runs directly in the player’s terminal while it takes them through the final hours of Alan Turing’s life. Masterfully executed and scripted, with great visuals and sound design that immerse the player across a variety of puzzle types.

Best Google AI Usage Winner

June Solstice Game Jam Submission

Ashley Childress

Jun 20

The Oracle and the Wolf: I Made Gemini Lose Like a Kid 🐺

#devchallenge #gamechallenge #gamedev #gemini

16 min read

@anchildress1's Save the Sun has players competing against an AI adversary to save Sol, the Norse goddess of the sun. A deterministic engine holds the secret and referees every move, so the AI can never cheat. The result is unique, thoughtfully constrained, and simply fun to play.

Prizes

All five winners will receive:

$200 USD
DEV++ Membership
Exclusive DEV Badge

All participants with a valid submission will receive a completion badge.

What's Next?

A short-form challenge that fits into your weekend!

Signed Up Sign Up Sign Up

Also, sign up for our Summer Bug Smash.

Signed Up Sign Up Sign Up

Happy gaming! 🕹️

DEV's Summer Bug Smash Launches on July 14. Register Now!

Jess Lee — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 22:57:41 +0000

We’re excited to announce our first ever Summer Bug Smash!

Every app has its share of rockstar bugs. This summer, we're giving them their grand finale with a community-wide bug-smashing event. We're giving you the heads-up now so you can identify the fixes and optimizations you’ve been dreaming of and map out your plan.

Sign Up Today

Full challenge details will be revealed at launch. Register now so you don’t miss our announcement. Once we’re live, you'll have several weeks to smash, document, and submit.

Ready to have a smashing time?

Signed Up Sign Up Sign Up

👀 💸🛹

We’ll be revealing our prizes at launch but here’s a sneak peek at our prize categories:

Clear the Lineup 🧹
Smash Stories ✏️
Best Use of Sentry 🔮
Best Use of Google AI 🤖

Important Dates

Bug Smash Begins: July 14, 2026
Submissions Due: August 23, 2026
Winners Announced: September 17, 2026

Can't wait to code?

We got you. Join the DEV Weekend Challenge kicking off tomorrow (July 9)!

Happy Coding!

The Next DEV Weekend Challenge Launches on July 9 - 13. Mark Your Calendar!

Jess Lee — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 15:54:40 +0000

We're back with another installment of the DEV Weekend Challenge!

If you missed the earlier editions, these are short-form, high-energy challenges designed to fit right into your weekend. We're giving you the heads-up now so you can clear your schedule!

How It Works

Our challenge prompt will be revealed at launch. Follow #weekendchallenge for updates. You can also keep an eye on the DEV Weekend Challenge page or look out for the official announcement post from the DEV Team. From there, you'll have the entire weekend to build, document, and submit your project. That's all there is to it!

Because our community spans every timezone on the planet, we've set the window so that everyone around the world gets at least a full weekend to participate.

Important Dates

Launch Time: July 10 at 2:00 AM UTC
Submissions Due: July 13 at 6:59 AM UTC

Here's what that looks like across a few timezones:

Timezone	Launch Time (Local)	Submissions Due (Local)
PDT	Thursday, Jul 9 at 7:00 PM	Sunday, Jul 12 at 11:59 PM
EDT	Thursday, Jul 9 at 10:00 PM	Monday, Jul 13 at 2:59 AM
GMT	Friday, Jul 10 at 2:00 AM	Monday, Jul 13 at 6:59 AM
CEST	Friday, Jul 10 at 4:00 AM	Monday, Jul 13 at 8:59 AM
IST	Friday, Jul 10 at 7:30 AM	Monday, Jul 13 at 12:29 PM
JST	Friday, Jul 10 at 11:00 AM	Monday, Jul 13 at 3:59 PM
AEST	Friday, Jul 10 at 12:00 PM	Monday, Jul 13 at 4:59 PM

While the window technically spans more than 48 hours, our goal is to ensure everyone has a full, uninterrupted weekend to work on their project regardless of where they live.

What else is happening?

Mark your calendars for the upcoming Summer Bug Smash.

Bug Smash - Register Now

We can't wait to see what you build!

What was your win this week?!

Jess Lee — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 13:00:00 +0000

👋👋👋👋
Looking back on your week -- what was something you're proud of?
All wins count -- big or small 🎉

Examples of 'wins' include:

Getting a promotion!
Starting a new project
Fixing a tricky bug
Fell into a Wikipedia rabbit hole and came out smarter (probably)🕳️

Happy Friday!

Congrats to the GitHub Finish-Up-A-Thon Challenge Winners!

Jess Lee — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 22:04:04 +0000

We are so excited to finally announce the winners of the GitHub Finish-Up-A-Thon Challenge, our celebration of finishing what you started by reviving abandoned side projects, hackathon creations, and long-forgotten repos with help from GitHub Copilot.

First things first: thank you all so much for your patience. We know this announcement took longer than expected, and we're grateful you stuck with us while we gave every submission the careful review it deserved.

The comeback stories you shared were incredible. Your work showed us that no project is ever truly dead, it's just waiting for its second act.

Now, let's celebrate our ten winners!

🎉 Congratulations To…

GitHub “Finish-Up-A-Thon” Challenge Submission

Lê Huy Giang

Jun 1

I Rebuilt My Karaoke App So Everyone's Phone Could Be a Remote

#devchallenge #githubchallenge #githubcopilot #webdev

6 min read

@lehuygiang28 rebuilt VKara, a browser-based karaoke room app where a shared screen acts as the TV and each guest's phone becomes a remote, merging scattered repos into one monorepo and redesigning the UX around distinct host and guest roles.

GitHub “Finish-Up-A-Thon” Challenge Submission

Daniel Balcarek

Jun 2

I Used My Last 7% of Copilot Tokens to Bring a 2014 WinForms Game Back to Life

#devchallenge #githubchallenge #webdev #csharp

6 min read

@gramli resurrected a 2014 WinForms puzzle game, using the last 7% of his Copilot tokens to port the aging desktop app into a modern, fully playable browser version.

GitHub “Finish-Up-A-Thon” Challenge Submission

Ishant gupta

Jun 2

Git-regret 💀 — I Finally Finished the CLI That Reads Your Shame

#devchallenge #githubchallenge #githubcopilot

5 min read

@ishantgupta rebuilt an 18-month-abandoned audit script into git-regret, a polished CLI that scans repo history for leaked secrets and messy fix-chains, then generates Copilot remediation plans to clean them up.

GitHub “Finish-Up-A-Thon” Challenge Submission

Dhruv Jani

Jun 7

ShelfTalk — Books Don't Talk. We Do. (A College Project, Revived)

#showdev #devchallenge #githubchallenge #webdev

4 min read

@dj29 revived ShelfTalk, a MERN social platform for book lovers, replacing REST polling with real-time Socket.io chat and shipping brand-new live synchronized reading rooms.

GitHub “Finish-Up-A-Thon” Challenge Submission

Nupoor Shetye

Jun 3

CodeSynth 2.0👩🏽‍💻: Rebuilding My Hackathon Prototype into a CRDT-Powered Coding Playground🚀

#devchallenge #githubchallenge #react #node

5 min read

@nupoorshetye rebuilt CodeSynth's fragile core, swapping naive Socket.io sync for Yjs-powered CRDT collaboration and adding a virtual file system and shared whiteboard to turn a hackathon prototype into a real multiplayer coding playground.

GitHub “Finish-Up-A-Thon” Challenge Submission

Divyesh

May 27

Reviving a 12K+ Star Abandoned Library: toastr-next v3 🍞

#devchallenge #githubchallenge #typescript #opensource

6 min read

@divyesh5981 revived toastr, a 12k-star notification library untouched since 2016, rebuilding it from scratch as toastr-next: zero dependencies, full TypeScript, dark mode, and WCAG accessibility at roughly 4KB gzipped.

GitHub “Finish-Up-A-Thon” Challenge Submission

Elizabeth Stein

Jun 4

My AI Tool Generated Garbage JSX. So I Grounded It in shadcn/ui and Finally Shipped It.

#devchallenge #githubchallenge #ai #react

7 min read

@liztacular reframed an abandoned component-search chatbot into Trace, a tool that turns a UI screenshot into a runnable React component grounded in a shadcn catalog, complete with a live sandbox and one-click accessibility fixes.

GitHub “Finish-Up-A-Thon” Challenge Submission

Edwar Diaz

Jun 2

From an Abandoned Angular Traceroute App to an Interactive Internet Route Lab

#devchallenge #githubchallenge #react #webdev

6 min read

@botoom rebuilt Uni Route, a 2021 Angular traceroute teaching app, from the ground up in React and Vite by adding hop-by-hop map playback, latency charts, and bilingual support to help students see how packets travel the internet.

GitHub “Finish-Up-A-Thon” Challenge Submission

Anuththara Wickramasekara

May 31

From Zero to Manifest V3: How GitHub Copilot Helped Me Finish an RSC Vulnerability Detector for CVE‑2025‑55182

#devchallenge #githubchallenge

5 min read

@anuththara2007w expanded a 50-line console script into a full Manifest V3 Chrome extension that fingerprints React Server Components and detects the React2Shell vulnerability class across four detection vectors with persistent storage.

GitHub “Finish-Up-A-Thon” Challenge Submission

Omar Afifi

May 27

Reviving Daphq: How I Built an Open-Source, Bare-Metal File Transfer Engine Solo with GitHub Copilot

#devchallenge #githubchallenge #flutter #opensource

5 min read

@omarafifi matured Daphq from a fragile v1 into a polished cross-platform file-transfer engine, adding UDP auto-discovery, socket backpressure, and OS integrations to push LAN transfers to roughly 90% bandwidth saturation.

Prizes

All ten winners will receive:

$300 USD
DEV++ Membership
Exclusive DEV Badge

The DEV Team will reach out to winners next week to coordinate prizes.

All participants with a valid submission will receive a completion badge on their DEV profile.

What's Next?

We have two new challenges coming down the pipeline. Make sure to follow the tags below to stay up to date with the announcements.

July Weekend Challenge

Summer Bug Smash

Thank you again to everyone who dusted off an old project and gave it the ending it deserved, and thank you to GitHub for partnering with us on this challenge.

Happy coding! 💜

Play today’s game from Issue #2 of The Daily Context!

Jess Lee — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 22:10:45 +0000

Yesterday, we kicked off our physical newspaper, The Daily Context, at the AI Engineer World’s Fair with "Vector Search." Thank you to everyone who played it online!

Today is Day 2 of the conference, which means Issue #2 of the newspaper is officially out on the floor. For today's puzzle, I wanted to change things up. Say goodbye to the word search grid and hello to...

Context Connections:

Just like yesterday, I built this using AI Studio and deployed it to Cloud Run.

Let me know if you solved the puzzle within four tries!! There are a few tricky ones in there 😈

DEV Community: Jess Lee

What was your win this week!?

DEV’s Big Summer Bug Smash is now LIVE! Share $5,000 in cash prizes, skateboards, and more across 20+ winners. 🐛🐞🪲

Two Ways to Join

Clear the Lineup

Smash Stories

Prize Categories

How To Participate

Step 1: Pick Your Prompt

Step 2: Publish Your Submission

Resources

Important Dates

Top 7 Featured DEV Posts of the Week

What was your win this week?!

Join our DEV Weekend Challenge: Passion Edition — $1,000 in Prizes Across FIVE Winners! Submissions Due July 13 at 6:59 AM UTC.

Our Prompt ❤️‍🔥

Prize Categories

Judging Criteria

Prizes

How To Participate

Need Help?

Important Dates

Congrats to the June Solstice Game Jam Winners!

🎉 Congratulations To…

Overall Prompt Winners

Best Ode to Alan Turing Winner

Best Google AI Usage Winner

Prizes

What's Next?

DEV's Summer Bug Smash Launches on July 14. Register Now!

Sign Up Today

👀 💸🛹

Important Dates

Can't wait to code?

Top 7 Featured DEV Posts of the Week

The Next DEV Weekend Challenge Launches on July 9 - 13. Mark Your Calendar!

How It Works

Important Dates

What else is happening?

What was your win this week?!

Congrats to the GitHub Finish-Up-A-Thon Challenge Winners!

🎉 Congratulations To…

Prizes

What's Next?

Play today’s game from Issue #2 of The Daily Context!