Hackathon judges, hiring managers, and open-source maintainers all ask the same question fast: is this repo alive and looked-after? Eyeballing every repo — commits, license, README, open issues — is slow.
So I built a tool that turns that into one number plus a fix-list. This is Day 4 of my SolveFromZero series (real problems, small tools).
One API call gives you almost everything
const r = await fetch(`https://api.github.com/repos/${owner}/${name}`);
const data = await r.json();
// stargazers_count, forks_count, open_issues_count,
// pushed_at, license, description, topics, homepage…
No auth needed — 60 requests/hour per IP, plenty for a demo.
Turn signals into points (this is the interesting part)
Recency beats raw popularity
A repo with 50k stars last touched 3 years ago is dead. pushed_at is the strongest "maintained" signal:
const age = (Date.now() - new Date(data.pushed_at)) / 86400000; // days
const recency = age < 30 ? 20 : age < 90 ? 14 : age < 365 ? 7 : 0;
Log-scale the stars
Linear star scoring lets torvalds/linux drown out every honest small project. Compress the range:
const popularity = Math.min(20, Math.round(Math.log10(stars + 1) * 7));
// 10★ ≈ 7 pts · 1,000★ ≈ 14 · 100k★ ≈ 20 (capped)
Issue hygiene as a ratio
100 open issues on a 50-star repo is a red flag; 100 on a 50k-star repo is normal life. Score relative to stars, not the absolute count:
const ratio = data.open_issues_count / Math.max(stars, 1);
const issues = ratio < 0.05 ? 15 : ratio < 0.2 ? 10 : ratio < 0.5 ? 5 : 0;
Add points for a license, a description, topics + homepage, and a README (one extra call to /repos/:o/:r/readme). Sum to 100.
Show the breakdown, not just the score
A bare number is useless. The value is "add a LICENSE for +15" and "no README". Render each component as a bar so the maintainer sees the cheapest wins:
Recent activity ████████████████████ 20/20 · pushed this month
Has license ░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░ 0/15 · none ← biggest quick win
Has README ████████████████████ 10/10 · yes
The reusable shape
fetch signals → score each → sum → explain. No machine learning, no training data — just public data and transparent rules. The same shape scores npm packages, Devpost submissions, or your own portfolio repos before you ship them.
🩺 Score any public repo live: https://dev48v.infy.uk/solve/day4-repo-health.html
Day 4 of SolveFromZero. A small, real tool every day.