I think you'd be surprised how many candidates you'd be able to filter out using a very easy task, despite the great credentials touted in their application.
That said, I don't think this is a VERY easy task, per se. And even if it were, there's achieving the stated objective, and then there's you taking the ability to demonstrate some additional skills. I'm in the Java world, and whenever I requested candidates doing exercises, them building a solution with no unit tests, or at least not voluntarily acknowledging that omission, would be a red flag.
And then I'd ask: let's say this wasn't an exercise, what things would you add before shipping this to production, which would be a great conversation starter around (again) testing (second chance), observability, logging, and so on.
That said, I don't think this is a VERY easy task, per se. And even if it were, there's achieving the stated objective, and then there's you taking the ability to demonstrate some additional skills. I'm in the Java world, and whenever I requested candidates doing exercises, them building a solution with no unit tests, or at least not voluntarily acknowledging that omission, would be a red flag.
And then I'd ask: let's say this wasn't an exercise, what things would you add before shipping this to production, which would be a great conversation starter around (again) testing (second chance), observability, logging, and so on.