One space almost made me bald.

Yea this threw me off as well. I had to go back and delete the code I wrote for this.

OR a number of days, passed as an integer (if passed the integer 30 => create your own date string that is 30 days from now).

This sentence, besides making no sense, is not true because the number of days doesn't have to be clamped in the final tests.

A hash is a one way encryption technique

Hashing and encryption are 2 different things, don't spread misinformation.

Fixed sample tests and enabled Node v12

Someone fixed full tests, so sample tests are now completely wrong.

Thanks for the feedback, I tried to clean it up a bit per your suggestion! Hopefully it helps

Date issue, new Date() will give current date, but test expect year 2017. So how?

The description would benefit from some markup and some newlines ( esp. the Q&D part - I haven't even read the unquick part ) - it's a massive, monolithic block of text ATM. Breaking it up a little could work wonders for its readability.

That is a great catch! Your arrangement is correct, my algorithm gave me a sub-optimal solution/score. I'll pull the kata for a bit and get that fixed.

Thank you, that is an interesting problem that I hadn't noticed. I will work on fixing this

Random tests sometimes generate test cases with n = 0:

works for string length 117, with new color purple and n 0

I have generated this placement for the last sample test, and I agree with the sample test code that its score is 72, which is higher than the hardcoded optimum score of 68. What's going on? Is it an invalid placement (and which rule does it break)?, or are both the sample test code and I miscalculating the score?, or is the hardcoded optimum score wrong (and should the optimum scores be hardcoded)?

 H ,eT , H ,   ,eH ,   ,   ,   ,   

 H ,eH , H ,   ,   ,eH ,   ,   ,eH 

   ,   ,   ,eH ,   ,   ,   ,   ,   

 H , H ,   ,   ,   ,   ,eH ,   , H 

 H , T , A ,   ,eH ,   ,   ,   ,   

   ,   ,   ,   ,   ,   ,   ,eH ,   

   ,   ,   ,   ,   ,   ,   ,   ,   

eH ,   ,   ,   ,eH ,   ,   ,   ,   

   , H , H ,eH ,   ,   ,   ,   ,eH 

   , H ,eA , H ,   ,   ,   ,   ,   

The sample tests call countNeighbors, which is not defined. While the solver must work towards that functionality in the course of solving the kata anyway, if you intend for the solver to define and implement countNeighbors themself, it would be better to say so explicitly in the instructions rather than make them look through a bunch of sample test code to figure out its signature and expected output.

The description specifies modifying the input. ( No really, read it. )

In this case, returning a value does not make sense ( though it is consistent with the JS design atrocity that is eg. native sort or reverse. taking bad design clues from a language does not make them good design though ).

The better option would be to specify returning a new value, and ensuring arguments are unharmed.

Please teach good habits.