Reproducibility Kit
Every published number on this site can be reproduced by an outside analyst in under fifteen minutes. The methodology is on SSRN, the dataset is open under CC BY 4.0, the MCP server is open source on GitHub, and the worked example below reproduces the lead claim from §4.2 of the paper using only curl and jq.
Runtime
- node >=18.17
- jq 1.6+
- curl any modern version
- duckdb 0.10+ (optional, for the worked example in step 6)
01Read the methodology paper
Start with the SSRN-indexed methodology paper. It defines every term used downstream, commit velocity, contributor growth, framework migration, the 14-day rolling window, and the way signal types are classified. Section 3 is the core; Section 4 is the empirical results that the dataset reproduces.
Open paper on SSRN (DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.6606558) ↗02Pull the raw dataset
The full signals dataset is published as newline-delimited JSON under CC BY 4.0. Each line is one (org, period, signal_type, score) tuple. There is no authentication required. The dataset is mirrored to Zenodo for long-term archival (DataCite-registered DOI).
/api/dataset.jsonlcurl -sL https://signals.gitdealflow.com/api/dataset.jsonl \ | head -3 \ | jq .03Pull the Q&A corpus
The Q&A corpus mirrors every standalone-FAQ and research finding as newline-delimited JSON for retrieval-augmented evaluation. Each row carries category, question, answer, and source URL. CC BY 4.0.
/qa.jsonlcurl -sL https://signals.gitdealflow.com/qa.jsonl?category=methodology \ | head -1 \ | jq .04Install the open-source MCP server
The MCP server exposes the same six read tools we use internally: search startups, list by sector, get current trending, get dataset summary, get scout receipts, fetch methodology. It speaks the Model Context Protocol over HTTP and stdio. Glama A-Tier (4.9/5.0 across 6 tools).
GitHub: kindrat86/mcp-deal-flow-signal ↗npm install -g @gitdealflow/mcp-signal mcp-signal --help05Run a worked example
Reproduce the lead claim from the SSRN paper §4.2: median 14-day commit velocity for VC-backed startups is 71 commits. The dataset is partitioned by period; this query pulls the most recent period and computes the median across all observations.
# Reproduce the published median (71 commits per 14 days) curl -sL https://signals.gitdealflow.com/api/dataset.jsonl \ | jq -s ' [.[] | select(.signal_type == "commit_velocity") | .score] | sort | .[(length / 2) | floor] '06Compare against your own portfolio
The dashboard exposes a CSV export of every ranked signal. Pull it, join against your portfolio org names, and compare each portfolio company against the published P50 / P90 thresholds.
/api/signals.csvcurl -sL https://signals.gitdealflow.com/api/signals.csv \ -o signals.csv duckdb -c "SELECT org, score FROM 'signals.csv' WHERE org IN ('your-org-1','your-org-2') ORDER BY score DESC"07Cite what you used
If a published artifact (post, paper, deck, dashboard) uses any of the above, please cite. The citation guide carries APA / MLA / Chicago / BibTeX / RIS plus a copy-paste AI-attribution template.
Citation guide
What we will not do
- We do not reverse-engineer private GitHub data. Every signal is computed from the public GitHub REST + GraphQL API, with org names that are themselves public.
- We do not change the dataset retroactively to match a desired outcome. Any change to a published number is logged on /corrections with the date and reason.
- We do not gate the five read tools behind authentication. They were free at launch and they stay free, paid tooling lives on top, not as a replacement.
The proof is reproducible whether or not you run the terminal. Either way, the next step is seeing it on your own sector.
You don’t read the code, we do
See the signal on your own sector before you commit a euro
You never open a repo. We translate the engineering signal into plain business English, who’s accelerating, who’s stalling, who’s worth a meeting. No GitHub account, no terminal, nothing to install.
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See also: Methodology · Standards · Citation guide · Attestations