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Methodology

How a listing gets here

Five steps stand between a public trace of software and a listing in this index. Each one below carries its written rule, a computed heartbeat, and — where we already publish one — a computed result. The text never claims a step is alive; the heartbeat does.

System state as of 13 Aug · 21:05 UTC · every figure computed, none written by hand

1 · Candidates arrive

Candidates enter from six families of public surfaces — package registries, app stores, code hosts, vendor sites, curated directories and public web mentions. A trace only becomes a candidate if it points at something publicly reachable. Candidates wait in a queue; position in that queue cannot be bought, and payment never speeds anything up.

Last new candidate seen: 13 Aug · 21:05 UTC

What this heartbeat can and cannot say: today a re-queued old candidate moves its existing row rather than creating a new one, so this date means “a new candidate arrived”. If that maintenance behaviour ever changes, this stamp could tick without real discovery — we state the assumption here rather than hide it.

2 · Most traces never become a record

Before anything is written down, a trace must look like a running project: a page that opens, software behind it, and a subject that is software rather than writing about software. Most candidates stop here.

Stopped before a record existed: 182,891

Counted over the decision-retention window, and bounded by it in the query rather than assumed of the prune job. The number of days is enforced by that job and printed here from its own heartbeat — 30 days.

  • Writing about software, not software78,693
  • The page could not be opened43,509
  • Read, and not a product26,014
  • Nothing running behind it yet17,916
  • Excluded by standing policy16,638
  • Reason not recorded121

These counts do not add to the assessment figures in step 3 — this is the population that never reached assessment, kept separate on purpose.

3 · What passes gets assessed

A record is assessed on the kind of evidence behind it — a public project page, a store listing, a repository, independent mentions — never on who submitted it or where we found it. The exact evidence thresholds are deliberately not published — a number here would be a recipe for manufacturing exactly that number.

Assessed: 231,376 · listed: 214,696 · assessed, not listed: 16,680

  • Removed from the catalog10,289
  • Reason not recorded4,299
  • A store page with no project behind it1,446
  • Identity could not be resolved652
  • Withheld under content policy54
  • Outside the covered window33

The same families, with the standing rules they enforce, live on Coverage rules — including how to contest a decision.

4 · What stands gets listed

“Listed” means: this project existed on public surfaces, the evidence held together under the rules above, and the record is now visible and countable. It does not mean we endorse the software, that it is safe, maintained, or good — those are claims we do not make.

Visible in the index right now: 214,696

One quantity, one value: steps 3, 4 and 5 print the same figure — and it is the same figure the operations band at the foot of this page prints, adopted from there rather than counted again. Not several counts that agree; one value, rendered several times.

5 · Listed things keep being checked

A listing is not a one-time stamp. Listed records are re-checked on a rolling basis; a project that stops answering loses its live status, and a host that repeatedly fails to answer is set aside for a period before we try again. How often the sweep runs is deliberately not published — an interval you can wait out is not one we print.

Re-check coverage: 203,844 of 214,696 listings ever re-checked · last stamp: 9 Aug · 02:21 UTC

§ · The limits of our own records

First: for some claims a listing shows, we keep no stored snapshot of the evidence behind the claim — the claim was checked when made, but you cannot ask us for the artefact. When that changes, this sentence changes with it.

Second, our own error rate — and it takes the same shape as everything above. The rule exists: every listing is written against a written 40-dimension benchmark that specifies what each field must contain, its failure modes, and how to check it against the source.

Sampling against that benchmark: not yet run · measured error rate: awaits that sampling

Until that sampling has run, we make no claim about how often we are wrong. The day it runs, the two slots above fill in — the text you are reading will not need to change.

Verify this page yourself

Every figure above is computed, never written by hand, and it comes from the same sources as Coverage rules, Status and Press numbers — open them side by side and compare. The catalog size is the live one: it is the value the band at the foot of this page holds, so the two cannot disagree with each other, and a reload can move it because the index moves. Decisions can be contested through the path on Coverage rules. What we ask search engines to index is a separate, positively-stated rule on the same page.

The words above are used precisely and are not interchangeable. A candidate and a record are the two stages steps 1 and 2 describe; tracked and listed are narrower than either, and both are defined site-wide in the Glossary — tracked is everything held, listed only what cleared the rules, which is why the two are never the same number. Where each source family comes from is on Data sources.