GitHub Contribution Tracker with Smart Scoring

Intelligent analysis of GitHub contributions that goes beyond simple line counts.

A Google Sheets-based tool that provides fair, nuanced evaluation of developer contributions by intelligently categorizing work into 8 types and applying customizable weights to reflect the true value of different kinds of contributions.

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🎯 The Problem

GitHub's built-in analytics are misleading:

• Treats all lines equally (1 line of config = 1 line of critical algorithm)
• Easy to game with many tiny commits
• Counts starter code and auto-generated files
• Doesn't distinguish features from bug fixes from documentation
• Encourages quantity over quality

This tool solves these problems by understanding what kind of work was done, not just how much.

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✨ Key Features

Smart Work Type Categorization

Automatically categorizes commits into 8 types:

Work Type	Default Weight	What It Measures
✨ Feature Creation	3.0x	New functionality and components
🐛 Bug Fixing	2.0x	Fixes to existing code
🔧 High Refactoring	0.7x	Major code improvements
🔨 Medium Refactoring	0.3x	Moderate improvements
📝 Low Refactoring	0.1x	Minor cleanup
🧪 Testing	0.4x	Test scripts and validation
📚 Documentation	0.3x	READMEs, comments, guides
🔩 Support Code	0.5x	Build scripts, configs, utilities

Customizable Weights

Adjust weights to match your project priorities:

• Building MVP? → Increase Feature weight
• Mature product? → Boost Refactoring and Testing
• Compliance-heavy? → Increase Documentation weight

Gaming-Resistant

Multiple safeguards prevent inflating scores:

• Minimum line thresholds (tiny commits don't count)
• Merge commit exclusion (no credit for merges)
• External code filtering (starter code excluded)
• Net change tracking (repeated edits don't inflate)

Beautiful Visualization

6-color stacked column chart shows:

• Work type composition per contributor
• Team balance (builders vs maintainers)
• Specializations vs generalists

Complete Transparency

Every point is explainable:

• Work type breakdown with exact lines and percentages
• Most active files showing focus areas
• Full commit history with co-authors
• PR, review, and issue tracking

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📊 Example Output

Contributor Summary

TeamMemberA                                Total Score: 2,189.7

Summary:
• 43 commits
• 0 PRs created, 0 merged
• 0 PRs reviewed, 0 review comments
• 0 issues created, 0 issue comments

Work Type Breakdown:
┌────────────────────┬───────┬────────┬─────────┬───────────┐
│ Type               │ Lines │ Weight │ Points  │ % of Score│
├────────────────────┼───────┼────────┼─────────┼───────────┤
│ ✨ Feature Creation │  511  │  3.0x  │ 1,533.0 │   70.00%  │
│ 🐛 Bug Fixing       │  274  │  2.0x  │   548.0 │   25.00%  │
│ 📚 Documentation    │  177  │  0.3x  │    53.1 │    2.40%  │
│ 🔨 Medium Refactor  │  149  │  0.3x  │    44.7 │    2.00%  │
│ 🧪 Testing          │   26  │  0.4x  │    10.4 │    0.50%  │
│ 🔩 Support Code     │    1  │  0.5x  │     0.5 │    0.00%  │
└────────────────────┴───────┴────────┴─────────┴───────────┘
TOTAL                    959            2,189.7     100.00%

Most Active Files:
1. querier/querier.c
2. crawler/crawler.c
3. common/index.c
4. indexer/indexer.c
5. common/pagedir.c

Visual Chart

The stacked column chart shows at a glance who does what type of work:

     │                          ┌──── Features (green)
     │    ████                  │
     │    ████  ████            ├──── Bug Fixes (yellow)
     │    ████  ████  ██        │
     │    ████  ████  ██        └──── Other types (various colors)
     └────────────────────
          A     B     C
        Contributors

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🚀 Quick Start

1. Create a New Google Sheet

Go to Google Sheets and create a new spreadsheet.

2. Open Script Editor

Click Extensions → Apps Script

3. Paste the Code

Copy the entire contents of Code.gs and paste it into the script editor.

4. Save and Refresh

• Save the script (Ctrl/Cmd + S)
• Close the script editor
• Refresh your spreadsheet page

5. Run Setup

From the menu bar: GitHub Tracker → 1. Setup Sheets

• Authorize the script when prompted

6. Add Your GitHub Token

• Go to GitHub Settings → Developer Settings → Personal Access Tokens
• Generate a token with repo scope
• Paste it in cell B2 of the Config sheet

7. Select Repository

• Run GitHub Tracker → 3. Auto-Fill My Username
• Run GitHub Tracker → 4. List Available Repos
• Click on the repo you want to analyze
• Run GitHub Tracker → 5. Set Selected Repo

8. Fetch Contributions

Run GitHub Tracker → Fetch Contributions

Done! Check the Summary sheet for results.

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📖 Documentation

Document	Description
Setup Guide	Detailed installation instructions
User Guide	How to use all features
Fairness & Equity	Why this tool is fair
Configuration	Customizing weights and settings
FAQ	Common questions

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🆚 vs. GitHub Insights

Feature	GitHub Insights	This Tool
Work type breakdown	❌ No	✅ 8 categories
Customizable weights	❌ No	✅ Full control
Filter external code	❌ No	✅ Auto-detect
Gaming prevention	❌ None	✅ Multiple safeguards
Visual breakdown by type	❌ No	✅ Stacked chart
Recalculate scores	❌ N/A	✅ Instant
Minimum thresholds	❌ No	✅ Configurable
Co-author credit	❌ No	✅ Full tracking
Export/share	❌ Screenshots	✅ Google Sheets

GitHub shows: TeamMemberB: 1,913 additions (MOST LINES)

This tool reveals:

TeamMemberA: 2,189.7 pts (MOST VALUE)
├── 70% high-impact features
└── 25% bug fixes

TeamMemberB: 1,810.4 pts
├── 40% features
├── 32% bug fixes  
└── 10% testing (quality-focused)

TeamMemberC: 438.8 pts
├── 46% support code (infrastructure)
└── 29% refactoring (code quality)

GitHub's raw line count makes TeamMemberB look like top contributor, but this tool shows TeamMemberA delivered the most value, and reveals TeamMemberC's specialized infrastructure role.

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🎓 Ideal Use Cases

• CS Courses - Fair grading for team projects
• Small Dev Teams - Understand team dynamics
• Open Source Projects - Recognize diverse contributors
• Performance Reviews - Data-driven evaluation
• Bootcamps - Track student progress

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⚙️ Configuration Options

Weights (Config Sheet)

Feature Creation:    3.0x  (default)
Bug Fixing:          2.0x
High Refactoring:    0.7x
Medium Refactoring:  0.3x
Low Refactoring:     0.1x
Testing:             0.4x
Documentation:       0.3x
Support Code:        0.5x

Date Range

Set a start date to exclude:

• Instructor-provided starter code
• Initial repository setup
• Work before the project officially began

Instant Recalculation

Changed weights? Run GitHub Tracker → Recalculate Scores to update all points without re-fetching from GitHub.

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🛡️ Privacy & Security

• Your token stays in your sheet - Never sent anywhere except GitHub's API
• No external servers - Everything runs in Google Apps Script
• No data collection - We don't track anything
• Open source - Inspect the code yourself

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🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please see CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines.

Ideas for Contributions

• Support for additional languages/file types
• New work type categories
• GitLab/Bitbucket support
• Improved commit message parsing
• Additional visualizations
• Multi-repo aggregation

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📄 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see LICENSE for details.

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🙏 Acknowledgments

Built to promote fair evaluation of diverse contribution styles in software development.

Special thanks to:

• CS educators who need better tools for team project grading
• Open source maintainers who recognize that not all contributions are code
• Everyone who believes quality matters more than quantity

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📬 Support

• Issues: GitHub Issues
• Discussions: GitHub Discussions

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Made with ❤️ for fair contribution tracking