Have a question about how GitScore works or how we handle your data? Find the answers to our most common inquiries below.
No. GitScore relies entirely on the public GitHub API. We do not require you to authenticate or log in, which means we physically cannot access your private repositories, private organizations, or any non-public data. Your score is based solely on what is visible to the public.
Your score is recalculated from live GitHub data. To stay within GitHub's API limits, we cache GitHub's responses for up to 15 minutes, so a new repository, star or follower shows up in your score within about 15 minutes.
Because GitScore does not require users to log in, we rely on GitHub's unauthenticated API rate limits, which are capped at 60 requests per hour per IP address. If you search for too many profiles in a short time, GitHub will temporarily block requests. If you hit this limit, please wait a few minutes and try again.
While mathematically possible, achieving a perfect score of 1000 is exceptionally rare. It requires tens of thousands of stars, a massive follower count, a year of weekly contributions with many pull requests merged into other projects, and starred projects in several languages. Your rank (such as "Top 3%") is measured separately, against a random sample of GitHub accounts with at least one public repository.
Activity is based on your public contributions over the last year. Consistency (how many of the last 52 weeks you contributed in) and pull requests merged into other people's repositories carry the most weight, so a single burst of commits scores less than steady work. Contributions to private repositories only count if you've chosen to show private contributions on your GitHub profile, and then only toward consistency.
GitScore provides a fun and data-driven way to look at open-source impact, but it should not be the sole metric used for hiring decisions. Many excellent developers do their best work in private, corporate repositories that GitScore cannot see. Use GitScore as a supplement to technical interviews and portfolio reviews.