DeskForge-Simulator is an open-source project that recreates the experience of working on a real IT helpdesk — but in a safe, collaborative learning environment.
It’s designed for beginners exploring IT support as well as experienced contributors who want to practice professional workflows. By contributing, you’ll gain hands-on experience with the same skills used in real service desk roles:
- 🎫 Submitting and triaging tickets — learn to capture user issues, categorize problems, and document troubleshooting steps.
- 📚 Writing and refining knowledge base (KB) articles — transform solved tickets into reusable documentation that helps prevent repeat issues.
- 🧪 Building troubleshooting labs — create interactive exercises that let others practice resolving common IT incidents.
- 🌐 Practicing escalation paths and IT workflows — follow industry-standard processes like the CompTIA A+ six-step troubleshooting model and learn when to escalate issues.
💡 Think of it as a helpdesk-in-a-repo: instead of just reading about IT support, you actively practice it — using tickets, KBs, and labs that mirror real-world scenarios.
Whether you’re completely new to IT, sharpening your troubleshooting skills, or mentoring others, DeskForge-Simulator gives you a structured, low-stakes environment to learn, contribute, and grow.
⭐ If you find DeskForge-Simulator useful, please give this project a star on GitHub — it helps the community grow and keeps the project alive!
-
Fork this repository and clone it to your machine.
git clone https://github.com/<your-username>/DeskForge-Simulator.git cd DeskForge-Simulator
-
Create a ticket using the template in
/tickets/. Save it as a new Markdown file, e.g.:/tickets/printer-issue.md -
Commit and push your changes.
git add tickets/printer-issue.md git commit -m "Add sample printer ticket" git push origin main -
Open a Pull Request to share your contribution! 🎉
👉 That’s it — you’ve added your first simulated helpdesk ticket.
Check out CONTRIBUTING.md if you want to go deeper (KB articles, labs, scenarios).
You’re welcome to post real tech support questions (e.g., “my printer won’t connect” or “Windows update keeps failing”) in GitHub Discussions. This community will treat them as learning scenarios.
However:
- This project is for education only — responses are not official IT support. This means no guarantees of fixes and we are not responsible for people's devices.
- Please do not share sensitive information (personal IPs, passwords, or private configs).
- Use advice at your own discretion.
Think of it as a safe space to learn troubleshooting together, not a replacement for your workplace or vendor IT support.
- Follow lamp-osticket-setup.md to set up an optional local osTicket instance on Ubuntu 24.04 (for realism).
- Or start contributing right away using GitHub Discussions and Markdown files in
/tickets/,/kb/, and/labs/. - See the CONTRIBUTING.md guide for templates and workflow details.
- For end-to-end flows, see the
/scenarios/folder and use the template at/scenarios/000.scenario-template.md. - Browse available labs in the Labs Catalog.
- Explore folder guides: Tickets · KB · Scenarios
DeskForge-Simulator is community-driven. We welcome:
- 🐞 Bug reports and fixes
- ✨ New tickets, KB articles, and labs
- 📖 Documentation improvements
- 💡 Ideas for scenarios or learning modules
Check out the CONTRIBUTING.md guide and join the conversation in GitHub Discussions.
Use GitHub Discussions to:
- Post tickets (simulated issues)
- Draft KB articles
- Share lab walkthroughs
- Ask general IT or project-related questions
- File issues here: DeskForge-Simulator Issues
- Open a pull request if you’ve already got a fix or draft
- See CONTRIBUTING.md for coding/writing standards
- GitHub account (to contribute)
- Text editor (for Markdown tickets, KBs, labs)
- Optional:
- Ubuntu 24.04 VM (via VirtualBox or Docker)
- osTicket v1.18.1 (local deployment) for testing tickets & KB workflows