Code challenges are great if well made, and horrible if not. They have to be short enough not to be unpaid labor (few will go through the trouble of paying their victims to work on interview tasks, and if I have an existing job I don't want to plow even 8 hours into getting any new job).
But having a simple coding task does some great things in that it will make the interviewee have to fix problems. They need to ask when unsure. You'll know who stops and asks and who plows through and solves the wrong problem. You'll know who throws their hands up when instructions are unclear and just says "I can't do this" and gives up. It's one of those extremely valuable and very effective filters that you just shouldn't be without.
The actual assignment can be however simple, but if they manage to install the tools, clone your repo, read the instructions, build the thing etc. then you already filtered out half the applicants or more. And that's without even starting to code.