Beta Repository metrics via GraphQL: LastContributionDate and CommitCount

[ahpook]

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There are two new metrics available under the Repository object in the GraphQL API:

• LastContributionDate - The most recent date there was any of the following activity: a commit to a repository’s default branch, opening an issue or discussion, answering a discussion, proposing a pull request, or submitting a pull request review. This is a good single-number metric to find projects that may be unmaintained or in need of archiving.
• CommitCount - A monotonically increasing count of the total number of commits pushed to the default branch of the repository. Tracking the change in this over time will give a sense of the overall activity in the repository.

These metrics are currently in public beta, so you will need to include a header to your GraphQL requests to opt-in:

GraphQL-Features: ospo_metrics_api

Please let me know here if you find these useful! Unless something goes horribly wrong, after a period of comment we'll make them generally available and remove the requirement for a feature flag.

[mathstuf]

CommitCount - A monotonically increasing count of the total number of commits pushed to the default branch of the repository. Tracking the change in this over time will give a sense of the overall activity in the repository.

How does Github guarantee this increases in the cases of:

• force pushes removing commits from the default branch?
• changing the default branch?

Do the counts just sit until the new configuration reaches a previously reported commit count? Or is this more accurate if "monotonically increasing" is removed?

[ahpook]

Fair point @mathstuf , it's probably better to under-specify how it will behave because I'm pretty sure we can't guarantee it will always increase in the cases you describe.

[mathstuf]

I'd also suggest using "reachable from" rather than "pushed to". Unless you're counting all unique commits reachable from all pushed refs to the default branch ;) .

[ghostinhershell]

Thanks so much for sharing with the community @ahpook! 🚀