Run a 20-minute regex challenge for your dev team

A regex challenge is one of the easiest team activities to run: everyone races through the same small regex puzzles against one timer, then compares the shortest answers. With Hunting Spree, Regex Hunter's free multiplayer mode, it takes about 20 minutes, works in person or over a video call, and needs nothing installed. Below is a plan you can run this week: the setup, the settings for two rounds, a script for the host, and how to make it a habit.

Here's the kind of board your team will race on. Try it alone first:

01Before the meeting (5 minutes, once)

• Accounts: Spree needs a free account with a verified email, so leaderboards stay fair. Send the link a day early so nobody spends the meeting in their inbox.
• A team (optional, recommended): create one on the Teams page and share its join link. Team sprees are visible only to members, and the team gets its own library of hunts (more on that below). A team holds 25 people by default, and the owner can raise the limit.
• Screen share: the host shares the lobby while people join, and the results at the end.

02The 20-minute plan

Why two modes: in Fastest, each hunt locks in as soon as your pattern works, and the ranking is hunts solved, then time. Nobody has to know regex golf, so it relaxes the room. In Shortest, the ranking is hunts solved, then fewest characters, and lengths stay hidden until the end, so the final reveal is the fun part. A room holds up to 50 players.

For a team that already knows regex, swap the main round for Reverse: the board shows only which words to catch and which to spare, with no quest text, so players work out the rule themselves.

03A script for the host

1. "This is a regex race. Each puzzle has words to catch and words to leave alone. Write one pattern that does both."
2. "First round counts speed: as soon as your pattern works, it's locked in."
3. After the warm-up: "Now it's about length. A shorter pattern beats a longer one, and nobody sees lengths until the end."
4. At the end, open the results, ask the winner of each hunt to share solutions, and read out the shortest pattern. Ask one question: "Would you ship this one?" The gap between the golfed answer and the readable one is usually the best conversation of the session.

04Settings by team

Hosts can pick 1 to 10 hunts and a timer of 1 to 10, 15, 20 or 30 minutes. Hunts come from the shared library (filter by topic and difficulty), can be picked one by one, or can come from your team's own library.

05Make it about your code

The best sessions use patterns your team actually writes. By default, any member of a team can add team hunts to its private library (the owner can limit that to admins): your log format, your ticket keys, your branch naming rules, the ID format your API returns. Then build a spree from team hunts only. It doubles as onboarding: a new engineer learns your formats by racing on them.

06Keep it going

• Weekly: same time each week, 10 minutes, one round. The results page keeps everyone's history.
• Across time zones: challenge a colleague to a 1v1 from their profile. Each of you plays the same hunts when it suits you, and the results settle when both are done.
• Between sessions: the daily hunt gives everyone the same puzzle each day, which makes a good thread in a team chat.

07Common questions

Do people need to know regex? No. The warm-up hunts are built for beginners, and Fastest mode rewards any working pattern. Point newcomers at the Academy afterwards.

Is it free? Yes, all of it: Spree, teams, team hunts and the daily.

Can we play without a call? Yes. Create a room, post the link in your team chat, and start when people have joined. Or let the lobby countdown start it.

Ready? Start a spree, or create your team first.