How do I install the Observatory skill?

Run npx skillmds@latest add jgravelle/observatory in your terminal (requires Node.js), paste this page's agent-chat prompt into Claude, Cursor, or any MCP-connected agent, or download the SKILL.md file and copy it into your agent's skills directory.

Is Observatory safe to use?

This skill has not completed SkillMD's automated safety review yet. Independent scanners report: SkillSpector: PASS, Skill Scanner: PASS. Capability flags: makes network calls. SkillMD never runs a skill's scripts for you; review the SKILL.md before installing.

Which AI agents work with Observatory?

This skill is tagged as working with Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex. SKILL.md is an open format, so most agents that read a skills directory can load it too.

Is Observatory free to use?

Yes. Installing skills from SkillMD is free, and the skill stays under its author's original license.

Who published Observatory?

jgravelle (@jgravelle) published this skill. Their other Agent Skills are listed on their SkillMD profile.

Observatory by jgravelle — Agent Skill

Name: Observatory
Rating: 4.5 (4 reviews)
Author: jgravelle

Observatory

Context for the jcodemunch-observatory weekly scorecard — what it tracks, the Monday 06:00 UTC cron, why scores must be pulled live rather than transcribed, the NestJS grade story, and the workflow's version dispatch input. Load before quoting, interpreting, or editing observatory scores or config.

jgravelle Updated Sep 9, 2026

File contents

Observatory tracking

jcodemunch-mcp, jdocmunch-mcp, and jdatamunch-mcp are tracked weekly at https://jgravelle.github.io/jcodemunch-observatory/ alongside Express, FastAPI, Gin, Pydantic, Django, Flask, NestJS, and Cobra (11 repos total). Cron: Mondays 06:00 UTC. Config edits auto-trigger a rebuild via the workflow's push-on-paths filter.

⚠⚠ MONDAY 2026-08-31 IS THE FIRST HONEST BUILD, AND IT WILL LOOK LIKE A REGRESSION. Until v1.108.303 the pipeline cloned with --depth=1, so churn_surface read churn 1 for every file in every repo and the axis ranked nothing but complexity — every published score was flattered, ours included. Expect a step change across the roster with no upstream cause: jcm goes 81.3 (B) -> 75.6 (C), and gin's grade holds at 91.8 (A) while its churn_surface raw moves 55.45 -> 39.42 because a different symbol becomes top hotspot. Do NOT chase this as a new defect and do NOT attribute it to any release. jjg decided on 2026-08-27 to let the cron publish it rather than trigger a rebuild early. Delete this note once that build is up.

Scores are NOT transcribed here. Pull them from the live index.json before quoting them anywhere ([[feedback_verify_observatory_output]]). A transcription is always stale: the cron is Mondays 06:00 UTC, so it lags any same-week release.

As of the 2026-07-20 build, suite ranking holds: jdatamunch > jdocmunch > jcodemunch — smaller, more focused tools score higher; jcm carries more surface area. All three sit at or above the median, and all three keep their grade. Every move is <=0.4 and no grade changed, so this is drift, not signal: the generator itself advanced 1.108.114 -> 1.108.146 between crons, and the third-party repos moved on their own upstream commits. Do not attribute these deltas to any specific release without checking the scored SHA — the two 0.1s and jdoc's -0.2 sit well inside the range the generator bump alone can produce.

NestJS's persistent D is a correctness story, not a regression. The barrel-aware import graph (jcm PR #284: export * from <spec> capture + dotted-basename resolution like ./foo.service) exposed ~18 real dependency cycles in NestJS's inter-package barrel chains that its previously-broken graph hid (find_importers against injectable.decorator.ts went 0 → 791). The corrected graph keeps NestJS at the bottom because the cycles are real.

Workflow hardening: .github/workflows/observatory.yml now accepts a version workflow_dispatch input (gh workflow run observatory.yml -f version=1.93.0) to dodge PyPI CDN propagation lag, and the workdir-cache key prefix tracks INDEX_VERSION so schema bumps invalidate prior cached SQLite indexes automatically.

---name: observatorydescription: Context for the jcodemunch-observatory weekly scorecard — what it tracks, the Monday 06:00 UTC cron, why scores must be pulled live rather than transcribed, the NestJS grade story, and the workflow's version dispatch input. Load before quoting, interpreting, or editing observatory scores or config.--- # Observatory tracking `jcodemunch-mcp`, `jdocmunch-mcp`, and `jdatamunch-mcp` are tracked weekly at https://jgravelle.github.io/jcodemunch-observatory/ alongside Express, FastAPI, Gin, Pydantic, Django, Flask, NestJS, and Cobra (11 repos total). Cron: Mondays 06:00 UTC. Config edits auto-trigger a rebuild via the workflow's push-on-paths filter. ⚠⚠ **MONDAY 2026-08-31 IS THE FIRST HONEST BUILD, AND IT WILL LOOK LIKE A REGRESSION.** Until v1.108.303 the pipeline cloned with `--depth=1`, so `churn_surface` read churn 1 for every file in every repo and the axis ranked nothing but complexity — **every published score was flattered, ours included.** Expect a step change across the roster with no upstream cause: jcm goes **81.3 (B) -> 75.6 (C)**, and gin's grade holds at 91.8 (A) while its `churn_surface` raw moves 55.45 -> 39.42 because a different symbol becomes top hotspot. **Do NOT chase this as a new defect and do NOT attribute it to any release.** jjg decided on 2026-08-27 to let the cron publish it rather than trigger a rebuild early. Delete this note once that build is up. **Scores are NOT transcribed here.** Pull them from the live `index.json` before quoting them anywhere ([[feedback_verify_observatory_output]]). A transcription is always stale: the cron is Mondays 06:00 UTC, so it lags any same-week release. As of the 2026-07-20 build, suite ranking holds: jdatamunch > jdocmunch > jcodemunch — smaller, more focused tools score higher; jcm carries more surface area. All three sit at or above the median, and all three keep their grade. Every move is <=0.4 and no grade changed, so this is drift, not signal: the generator itself advanced 1.108.114 -> 1.108.146 between crons, and the third-party repos moved on their own upstream commits. **Do not attribute these deltas to any specific release without checking the scored SHA** — the two 0.1s and jdoc's -0.2 sit well inside the range the generator bump alone can produce. **NestJS's persistent D is a correctness story, not a regression.** The barrel-aware import graph (jcm [PR #284](https://github.com/jgravelle/jcodemunch-mcp/pull/284): `export * from <spec>` capture + dotted-basename resolution like `./foo.service`) exposed ~18 real dependency cycles in NestJS's inter-package barrel chains that its previously-broken graph hid (`find_importers` against `injectable.decorator.ts` went 0 → 791). The corrected graph keeps NestJS at the bottom because the cycles are real. Workflow hardening: `.github/workflows/observatory.yml` now accepts a `version` workflow_dispatch input (`gh workflow run observatory.yml -f version=1.93.0`) to dodge PyPI CDN propagation lag, and the workdir-cache key prefix tracks `INDEX_VERSION` so schema bumps invalidate prior cached SQLite indexes automatically.

Frequently asked questions