athola DORA Metrics
Purpose
Compute the four DORA delivery-performance metrics (Deployment Frequency, Lead Time for Changes, Change Failure Rate, and Time to Restore Service) from local git history and the GitHub API. Classify each metric into Elite, High, Medium, or Low using thresholds from DORA's State of DevOps research, and surface the single weakest dimension as the next improvement target.
When To Use
- Engineering management retrospectives and quarterly reviews.
- Auditing whether agentic workflows (AI-assisted PRs, automated deploys) improve velocity and stability or quietly regress them.
- Feeding a tier signal into
minister:release-health-gates.
When Not to Use
- Single-team velocity tracking that needs story-point burndowns rather than delivery-performance evidence.
- Repositories without a clear production branch or release cadence; DORA assumes one.
Workflow
Run the helper script with the desired window:
python3 -m minister.dora_metrics --window 30 --branch mainRead the output: per-metric value, tier classification, and the bottleneck pointer.
For agentic-workflow audits, run the same window twice. Once filtering to AI-authored PRs (e.g.,
--failure-label ai-bug), once across all PRs. Compare the CFR delta. Seemodules/agentic-workflow-signals.md.Optionally pipe
--jsoninto the tracker so trend data persists alongsiderelease-health-gatessnapshots.Optionally render trend charts with kuva when reviewing multiple windows or comparing before/after an agentic-workflow change:
# Collect weekly snapshots into a TSV, then plot all four metrics # week<TAB>metric<TAB>value kuva line trends.tsv --x week --y value --color-by metric \ --title "DORA trends (30-day windows)" -o dora-trends.svg # Quick terminal preview without writing a file kuva line trends.tsv --x week --y value --color-by metric --terminalkuva reads TSV/CSV from stdin or a file path. Install once:
cargo install kuva --features cli. No project source changes required. See kuva for the full plot-type reference.
Inputs
| Flag | Default | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
--window |
30 | Measurement window in days |
--branch |
HEAD | Production branch |
--failure-label |
bug | GitHub label marking prod failures |
--json |
off | Emit JSON instead of human-readable |
--repo-path |
cwd | Repository directory |
Outputs
A short text report or JSON payload with:
- Per-metric numeric value (e.g.,
4.2/day,2.1 hours,8%). - Per-metric tier (Elite, High, Medium, Low).
- Overall tier (the weakest of the four).
- Bottleneck key, identifying which metric to focus improvement on.
Tier Thresholds
See modules/thresholds.md for the complete table. Brief summary:
| Metric | Elite | High | Medium | Low |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DF | >= 1/day | >= 1/week | >= 1/month | < 1/month |
| LT | <= 1 day | <= 1 week | <= 1 month | > 1 month |
| CFR | <= 15% | <= 30% | <= 45% | > 45% |
| TRS | < 1 hour | < 1 day | < 1 week | >= 1 week |
Verification
Confirm a DORA report is real by re-running the script over a
narrower window and checking that DF and LT scale predictably. For
CFR and TRS, sample two or three of the contributing GitHub issues
and verify the bug (or chosen) label is correct on each.
Testing
Unit tests live in
plugins/minister/tests/unit/test_dora_metrics.py. Each tier
boundary is exercised at the threshold, so future contributors who
adjust an inequality (> vs >=) trigger a failure rather than a
silent regression. Add new tests at the threshold when extending
classification logic.
Exit Criteria
- DORA report generated for the requested window.
- All four metrics classified into a tier.
- Bottleneck dimension surfaced.
- Output is readable in a terminal or as a PR comment.
Source: athola/claude-night-market → plugins/minister/skills/dora-metrics/SKILL.md