Registry for 'Temporary' Production Hacks: startup idea with real demand
Every team has something meant to last a couple of days that has run in production for years (a cron job, a mystery script, a manual deploy step) with no registry tracking it.
r/devops · Sep 14, 2026 – Oct 14, 2026 · 133 upvotes
What's the most ridiculous "temporary fix" you've
Read the thread · 84 comments
Registry for 'Temporary' Production Hacks is a startup idea for DevOps engineers and engineering managers. Every team has something meant to last a couple of days that has run in production for years (a cron job, a mystery script, a manual deploy step) with no registry tracking it. A thread in r/devops drew 133 upvotes and 84 comments between Sep 14, 2026 – Oct 14, 2026. People get by with TODO comments and Jira tickets, and that still leaves this job open. Hotness is 3.45, Warm. Real but moderate pain. Some willingness to pay. The thread drew 133 upvotes and 84 comments. Only clumsy or enterprise-only options. A 1-2 week mvp. A first version is weekend-easy, about 2 weeks, priced between $50 and $199 a month and charged as a B2B subscription. The pain, the source, the alternatives, the scope notes, and the questions on this page are free to read and free to build from. The agent starter prompt is the paid part. The first slice is on the page. One credit unlocks the rest, to paste into a coding agent, download as Markdown, or send as a private link.
Verbatim quotes are added only after a manual check. Until then, the thread title is the excerpt. Exact post date and verbatim quotes pending enrichment.
Who has it
DevOps engineers and engineering managers.
What people use now
- TODO comments
- Jira tickets
A way through
A lightweight tool integrated with the repo and ticketing that registers 'temporary' solutions with a mandatory review date and escalates expired hacks.
MVP scope
- Give DevOps engineers and engineering managers a way to do this in one sitting: Log every temporary fix with a mandatory review date and escalate the overdue ones to their owner.
- Persist the result and show it again after a reload.
- State the empty case when there is nothing to show yet, with one next step.
- Charge later with a B2B subscription, between $50 and $199 a month. The free path must finish the core job once.
- Ship the web app only. Leave TODO comments to keep the jobs they already do well.
How it could charge
B2B SaaS · $50–199 a month · B2B · GLOBAL.
Hotness 3.45
3 of 5, Warm. Real but moderate pain. Some willingness to pay. The thread drew 133 upvotes and 84 comments. Only clumsy or enterprise-only options. A 1-2 week mvp.
Why this score
| Pain | 3 / 5 |
| Willingness to pay | 3 / 5 |
| Demand | 3 / 5 |
| Competition gap | 4 / 5 |
| Ease of build | 4 / 5 |
| Recency | 5 / 5 |
Weights: pain 25%, willingness to pay 20%, demand 20%, gap 15%, ease 10%, recency 10%. Recency is recomputed every build. The source report’s 1–10 score is not shown.
Questions
Is this idea already taken?
People already use TODO comments, Jira tickets. Those options do not do the job in the solution above. The idea is free to build. Nothing here is an exclusive claim.
How hard is a first version?
Weekend-easy. A tight MVP is about 2 weeks (2 weeks), assuming the regulated or partner-gated parts are stubbed. The paid prompt turns that into tasks.
Who would pay, and how?
The audience is DevOps engineers and engineering managers. Charge a B2B subscription, and test a price between $50 and $199 a month. Willingness to pay is one input to Hotness, not a promise that someone will buy.
Can I use the evidence?
Yes. Build the product. The thread title is a short excerpt with a link, not a quote we are putting in someone's mouth. Exact post dates and verbatim lines are added only after a manual check. Ideas are suggestions, not medical, legal, or financial advice.
Agent prompt
The first slice is public. The rest is fetched only after you unlock it, and it is not in this page’s HTML.
# Agent starter prompt: Registry for 'Temporary' Production Hacks You are a senior product engineer. Build only the product described in this document. If a detail is missing, choose the smallest option and write it down in the README. Do not invent a second product, a marketplace of marketplaces, or a growth hack. ## Product Name: Registry for 'Temporary' Production Hacks One line: Log every temporary fix with a mandatory review date and escalate the overdue ones to their owner. Shape: Web app AI stance: AI-assisted Region for v1: Global Hotness (context only, not a requirement): 3.45 (warm). Real but moderate pain; some willingness to pay; thread engagement 133▲/84💬 (demand 3/5); only clumsy or enterprise-only options; a 1-2 week mvp. ## Problem Every team has something meant to last a couple of days that has run in production for years (a cron job, a mystery script, a manual deploy step) with no registry tracking it. Who feels it: DevOps engineers and engineering managers.
Unlock the rest with 1 credit.
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