Repo Scout — Repository Discovery & Ranking

Overview

Systematically discover and rank GitHub repositories in a given ecosystem. Produces a structured, actionable ranking document.

Use cases: Open-source contribution targeting, technology landscape surveys, competitive analysis, ecosystem exploration.

Prerequisites

Before starting, the user must have GitHub CLI authenticated:

gh auth status   # Must show "Logged in"

If not configured, ask the user to provide:

1. GitHub username — for searching and attribution
2. GitHub token — run gh auth login or set export GH_TOKEN=

Without auth, gh API calls will hit rate limits quickly and private repo data won't be accessible.

Workflow

Step 1: Define Scope

Ask the user for (with sensible defaults):

Step 2: Search & Collect

Use multiple search strategies to find candidates:

Search strategies:
1. GitHub search: "{keyword}" sorted by stars
2. "awesome-{keyword}" curated lists
3. GitHub trending in the domain
4. Web search for "{keyword} top open-source projects {year}"

For each candidate repository, collect:

Step 3: Score & Rank

Score each repository on a contribution friendliness scale:

Step 4: Filter Out

Mark repositories to skip if:

• Non-code repo (awesome-lists, documentation-only, resource collections)
• Desktop/mobile UI bugs requiring hardware access
• No actionable bug issues (only feature requests or stale issues)
• Archived or unmaintained (no commits in 6+ months)
• Hostile contribution environment (PRs routinely ignored)

Step 5: Produce Ranking Document

Write {workspace}/ecosystem-top{N}.md:

# {Ecosystem} — Top {N} Repositories

> Generated: {date}
> Keywords: {keywords}
> Minimum stars: {min_stars}

## Rankings

| Rank | Repository | Stars | Language | Open Bugs | Score | Notes |
|------|-----------|-------|----------|-----------|-------|-------|
| 1 | owner/repo | 45.2K | Python | 12 | 8.5/10 | Active, good docs |
| 2 | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... |

## Skipped Repositories

| Repository | Reason |
|-----------|--------|
| owner/repo | Non-code (awesome-list) |

## Detailed Profiles

### 1. owner/repo (45.2K ⭐)
- **Language**: Python
- **Last commit**: 2 days ago
- **Open issues**: 234 (12 labeled `bug`)
- **CONTRIBUTING.md**: ✅
- **CI**: ✅ GitHub Actions
- **Score breakdown**: Activity 3/3, Bugs 3/3, Docs 2/3, CI 3/3, Community 2/3, Response 2/3
- **Notes**: Very active, welcoming community

Output

• {workspace}/ecosystem-top{N}.md — Structured ranking document ready for downstream use

Tips

• When used as part of a contribution campaign, the output feeds directly into the issue-hunter skill for issue analysis.
• For technology evaluation, the ranking + detailed profiles are the final deliverable.
• Re-run periodically to catch ecosystem changes.