Buzz, then a gate.

What counts

• Hacker News stories and comments that link a github.com repository. Weight 1.2.
• X posts, when an outside process drops them in a JSON file or URL. Weight 1. This seed has none.
• Curated inbox lines (Instagram, Threads, Reddit, TikTok, YouTube, or other). Weight 1.5. Reddit is never fetched automatically.
• Submissions you send through the form, after an admin approves them. Weight 0.5.

Engagement scales the weight. Hacker News uses 1 + log10(1 + points + 2 × comments). X uses 1 + log10(1 + likes + 2 × reposts + 2 × replies + 3 × quotes). A curated note is 1, 1.5, or 2 from its low, medium, or high hint. Submissions use 1.

Who said it

The repo owner mentioning their own project counts as 0.3. A handle on the trusted watchlist counts as 1.2. An account younger than 30 days, or with fewer than 50 followers, counts as 0.5. Everyone else counts as 1. The same author counts once per repo per 24 hours; the highest-scoring post in that window is kept.

Time and stars

Each mention is multiplied by 0.5 raised to (age in hours ÷ half-life). Half-lives are 12 hours for Today, 72 hours for Week, and 240 hours for Month. Today is quiet when the posts are a few days old. Week is the default.

Star velocity is 2 × log10(1 + stars gained in the window). The first snapshot has no earlier number, so the gain is empty and this term is zero. We do not invent a history. One snapshot is stored per calendar day.

A cross-platform bonus multiplies the total: 1 + 0.15 for each extra platform, capped at 1.3. Curated mentions are capped at 3 per 7 days. Buzz is (social + stars) × that bonus.

The gate

• README of at least 300 characters, not archived, not on the blocklist.
• The repo’s own name, description, topics, and README have to read as relevant. A Hacker News thread title cannot drag an unrelated repository onto the list.
• At least two distinct authors, or one curated mention, or one Hacker News post with 20+ points.
• Forks stay off the list unless two authors mention them, or a Hacker News post reaches 80 points.
• Spam wording (airdrop, memecoin, token sale, presale, guaranteed returns) is rejected. Repositories named awesome-* stay in review.

What the score does not do

Sponsored cards sit in fixed grid slots and are labeled Sponsored. They are not in the ranking. A weekly top 10 is a draft until an admin approves it, and approving it does not email anyone. Summaries come from the GitHub description or the README until Workers AI or Anthropic is configured. The setup prompt quotes install commands from the README and tells the agent to review the code before running anything.