majiayu000 Repo Research
Scan public GitHub repos for agent skills (SKILL.md ecosystem), dev practices (git/PR/CI workflows from real teams), or code patterns (framework idioms, config layouts) — then merge validated insights into the local catalog with full attribution.
Manual extraction is unsustainable. The agent-skill ecosystem alone has 1,400+ repos as of April 2026, and that's before counting the repos worth scanning for their CI, testing, or i18n setups. This skill makes the scan repeatable and the merge auditable.
Navigation
- Quick Reference — entry-point table by need
- Three Modes — skill / practice / code targeting
- When to Use and When NOT to Use
- Default Workflow — discover → triage → fetch → diff → merge
- Output Contract — per-mode scan report shape
- references/discovery-protocol.md — discovery commands and triage (includes velocity/dependency signals and beyond-GitHub hosts)
- references/code-pattern-mining.md — Mode C extraction
- references/attribution-rules.md — licensing
- references/code-search-syntax.md — GitHub Blackbird qualifiers,
gh search codeCLI, rate-limit strategy, example queries per mode - references/graphql-triage.md — single-repo health query, batch-alias pattern, repo discovery via
searchconnection - references/signal-quality.md — fake-star/astroturf detection: fork ratio, GH Archive spike queries, contributor account-age checks
- references/git-history-forensics.md — single-repo git-history verification: pickaxe
-S/-G,blame -w -C -M,bisect run,range-diff, whengit loglies - data/sources.json — registries, authors, hot lists, ecosystem analytics, cross-host registries
Quick Reference
| Need | Mode | Entry point |
|---|---|---|
| Find SKILL.md repos for a domain | skill |
scripts/search_repos.sh --kind skill <domain> |
| Find teams with strong git/CI practice to copy | practice |
scripts/search_repos.sh --kind practice <topic> |
| Find framework idioms in high-signal OSS | code |
scripts/search_repos.sh --kind code <language>/<framework> |
| Find OSS clones of a commercial product (killer-feature signal) | killer-feature |
scripts/search_repos.sh --kind killer-feature <commercial-product> |
| Fetch assets from a known repo | any | scripts/fetch_repo_assets.sh <owner>/<repo> <out> --kind <mode> |
| Compare external to local equivalent | any | scripts/diff_against_local.sh <external> <local> |
| Verify a claimed practice/pattern against real git history (not just static files) | practice, code |
references/git-history-forensics.md |
| License/attribution rules | any | references/attribution-rules.md |
| Registries + high-signal authors | any | data/sources.json |
Four Modes
Mode A — Skill Discovery
Target: repos containing SKILL.md + references/ (the agent-skill ecosystem).
Fetch: SKILL.md, references/, optionally scripts/.
Output: research pack → feeds existing software-*, data-*, ai-*, ops-* skills in your catalog.
Use when: enriching an existing skill, or auditing what already exists before building one.
Mode B — Practice Scan
Target: real production repos (not skill repos) with strong process signals.
Fetch: .github/ (workflows, PR/issue templates, CODEOWNERS), CONTRIBUTING.md, SECURITY.md, release notes cadence, docs/adr/ (architecture decisions).
Output: research pack → feeds dev-git-workflow, qa-*, ops-* skills.
Use when: redesigning team policy (branching, PR review, CI gates, release cadence) and you want evidence from real teams, not just framework docs.
Mode C — Code Pattern Extraction
Target: high-signal OSS repos in a specific language/framework.
Fetch: configs (tsconfig, biome, eslint, ruff, cargo), representative source modules, test layouts, scripts/ or Makefile.
Output: patterns → feeds software-* skills.
Use when: a local skill covers a domain where mature OSS implementations exist and the team's patterns are better than anything in docs (think: React Query's cache patterns, tRPC's type-safety tricks, Turborepo's build graph).
Mode D — Killer-Feature Mining
Target: OSS clones of a specific commercial product (e.g., supabase/supabase clones Firebase, plausible/analytics clones Google Analytics).
Fetch: README.md, CHANGELOG.md, docs/, landing pages — the marketing surface that reveals which features the OSS author chose to replicate (and which they explicitly didn't).
Output: rows on the shared pay-trigger-ledger.tsv with signal_type=oss_clone_focus → contributes to the bundle's Killer-Feature Convergence Protocol owned by startup-review-mining.
Use when: the bundle is hunting a killer feature for a commercial product, OR you want to know what the OSS world considers the load-bearing feature(s) of a category leader.
Premise: OSS authors only reimplement what they think matters. That choice is revealed preference under cost — a strong proxy for monetizable core.
Reference: references/killer-feature-mining.md — full extraction protocol + LLM prompts.
When to Use
- Enriching a skill: you have
software-ios-nativeand want to steal what other operators learned - Pre-build audit: you're about to author a new skill — has the work already been done?
- Policy redesign: your team's PR workflow is breaking — scan how 5 leading OSS repos handle it
- Framework adoption: you're committing to a new framework — pull idioms from the repos that stress-test it
- Periodic refresh: quarterly re-scan of a domain to catch new patterns from active maintainers
- Bundle handoff — killer-feature scan:
startup-review-miningKiller-Feature Mode asks Mode D for the OSS clone signal on a target commercial product
When NOT to Use
- Web articles, papers, blog posts →
ai-deep-research - Library/package selection or upgrade path →
dev-dependency-management - Cross-repo code context for your own portfolio →
dev-context-multi-repo - Per-commit message generation or commit-policy implementation →
dev-git-commit-message - Branching-model design in isolation (no evidence-gathering needed) →
dev-git-workflow - One-off lookup of a specific file → plain
WebFetch - Cloning to fork → plain
git clone - Validated Q&A answers or known-error solutions → the Stack Overflow corpus (community MCP or the emerging Stack Overflow for Agents exchange), via
qa-debugging— not repo mining
Default Workflow
ASCII Flow
public repo research request
-> Choose mode: skill, practice, or code
-> Check prior packs, cached raw extracts, and target sources.json
-> Discover and shortlist 3-5 high-signal repos
-> Fetch only mode-specific assets and pin source commit SHAs
-> Diff external material against the local target
-> Mine novel patterns and write an attributed research pack
-> Wait for explicit approval before merging changes
Phase 0 — Context Check (always run first)
Before fetching anything from GitHub:
- Prior research packs:
ls docs/research/*-scan.md— if a recent pack covers this domain + mode, read it first - Cached extractions:
ls docs/research/*/raw/<owner>__<repo>/— if a repo was extracted in the last 30 days, reuse unlessHEADadvanced - Target skill's
data/sources.json: if a source is already tracked, compare itscommit_shato the current repo to decide refresh vs reuse - Existing pack as Level 1 input — only re-fetch the delta
Mirrors the context-first protocol: use prepared artifacts before raw fetches.
Phase 1–9 — Active Research
- Frame the goal: "Enrich
software-ios-nativewith novel patterns from the iOS skill ecosystem" or "Redesign release workflow using practices from 3 active monorepos" or "Improve React i18n patterns insoftware-localisation" - Discover:
scripts/search_repos.sh --kind <mode> <domain>→ ranked shortlist - Triage: pick 3–5 repos using signals in references/discovery-protocol.md — applies to all modes
- Extract (only what's missing or stale):
scripts/fetch_repo_assets.sh <owner>/<repo> docs/research/<scan-id>/raw/ --kind <mode> - Diff:
scripts/diff_against_local.sh docs/research/<scan-id>/raw/<repo>/ <target-local-skill>/ - Mine insights: follow mode-specific guidance
- Mode A → references/insight-mining.md
- Mode B → references/practice-scan-targets.md
- Mode C → references/code-pattern-mining.md
- Mode D → references/killer-feature-mining.md (output appends to shared bundle ledger, not a local skill)
- Synthesize: research pack at
docs/research/<scan-id>.md - User reviews: present the pack, wait for approval on what to merge
- Apply (opt-in): follow references/apply-protocol.md
Output Contract
Research pack at docs/research/YYYY-MM-DD-<mode>-<domain>-scan.md:
# <Mode> Scan: <Domain> — <Date>
## Mode
skill | practice | code | killer-feature
## Sources Reviewed
| Repo | Stars | Last commit | License | Scorecard | Quality | Action |
|------|-------|-------------|---------|-----------|---------|--------|
## Insights Extracted
For each insight:
- Source: <repo URL + commit SHA>
- Mode: skill | practice | code
- Pattern: <name and 1-line description>
- Why it matters: <evidence from the source>
- Where it goes: <target skill + reference file>
- Novel vs local: <new / extends existing / duplicates existing>
- Confidence: <high / medium / low + rationale>
## Recommended Merges
| Pattern | Target skill | Action | Approved? |
## Skipped
<insights reviewed and rejected, with reason>
## Attribution Pack
<full source list with URLs, commit SHAs, licenses, extraction dates>
Attribution Rules
Mandatory before any merge:
- Check the source repo's LICENSE — MIT / Apache-2.0 / BSD / CC-BY-4.0 permit derived work with attribution
- Never copy
SKILL.md, reference files, or source files verbatim — extract patterns, rewrite in local voice - Cite source URL + commit SHA + extraction date + license on every merged insight
- Add the source to the target skill's
data/sources.json - Pin to commit SHA, never
main— supply-chain drift is real
Full rules: references/attribution-rules.md
Patterns
| Pattern | Why it works |
|---|---|
| Pin every fetch to commit SHA | Makes extractions reproducible; survives repo renames, branch deletions, force-pushes |
| Filter by OpenSSF Scorecard ≥ 5 (Mode B/C) | Strong proxy for maintenance quality; weeds out abandoned and risky repos |
| Require CODEOWNERS for practice-scan targets | Repos without ownership signals usually have ad-hoc process — nothing to steal |
| Shortlist to 3–5 repos, not 20 | Extraction is the bottleneck; wide scans dilute signal |
| Apply one skill at a time, one commit per skill | Makes merges reviewable and revertable |
| Always diff-against-local before extracting | Prevents duplication, surfaces real novelty |
| Re-scan quarterly (not weekly, not yearly) | Best-practice drift is slow; weekly scans pay cache costs without new signal |
| Verify high-value practice/pattern claims against real git history, not just static files | CODEOWNERS, CONTRIBUTING.md, and merge-queue config describe policy; blame -w -C -M, range-diff, and bisect run show whether it's actually followed — see references/git-history-forensics.md |
Anti-Patterns
| Anti-pattern | Why it fails | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Auto-applying insights without user review | Merges stale or wrong patterns | Always present research pack first |
| Cloning entire repos by default | Wastes context; most value is in ≤10 files | Default to mode-specific asset list |
| Copying content verbatim | License violation + voice drift | Always rewrite in local voice |
| Extracting without diff-against-local | Duplicates content, creates contradictions | Always run diff first |
| Trusting stars alone | LLM-spam repos farm stars via mutual-follow networks | Cross-check commit signing, Scorecard, contributor count |
| Trusting LLM-generated awesome-lists | Many April-2026 awesome-lists are LLM-synthesized and list dead repos | Spot-check 3 random entries before using the list as a registry |
Fetching main branch without pinning |
Content drifts; citations become unverifiable | Always capture commit SHA, cite it |
| Scanning repos flagged as mirrors/vendors | Duplicates upstream; wastes triage time | Filter fork=false, archived=false, check for mirror in description |
Treating topic agent-skills as a quality signal |
Topic is now noisy (>5000 repos, ~60% stale or LLM-generated) | Prefer claude-skills, codex-skills, or author-curated lists |
| Research pack with no attribution | Cannot re-verify, breaks audit trail | Every insight gets source URL + commit SHA + license |
| Re-fetching repos extracted in the last 30 days | Wastes API quota + duplicates context | Phase 0: check docs/research/*/raw/ first |
| Ignoring prior research packs | Loses prior synthesis, agents do duplicate analysis | Phase 0: read existing packs as Level 1 context input |
Known Issues (July 2026)
| Issue | Impact | Workaround |
|---|---|---|
gh api rate limit: 5000 req/hr authenticated |
Bulk scans of 50+ repos blow the budget | Batch, pause, or use GraphQL (single call, deeper data) for listings |
| GitHub Search API has its own much lower limits, separate from the 5,000/hr core budget — 9 req/min for code search specifically, 30 req/min for repo/issue/user search (verified against GitHub REST docs, 2026-07-11) | A code-search sweep (e.g. path:.github/workflows) throttles in well under a minute even with core budget free |
Budget code search at ≤9 calls/min, general search at ≤30 calls/min; pause between pages; prefer one wide query + local filtering over many narrow ones; never parallelise code search — see references/code-search-syntax.md |
GitHub still hosts only SHA-1 repos as of mid-2026 — Git itself has shipped experimental SHA-1/SHA-256 "compat" object-format support since 2.45, and Git 3.0 (targeted late 2026) defaults new repos to the reftable ref backend, but no major forge (GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket) serves SHA-256 repos yet |
Don't assume a scanned repo's local git internals (hash algo, ref backend) match what git version on your machine defaults to |
Treat SHA-256/reftable claims about a target repo as forge-side metadata, not inferable from clone behavior; re-verify at git-scm.com/docs before citing a specific version's default |
| Papers with Code is dead (Meta shutdown Jul 2025) | Any inherited workflow that used PwC for reproducibility signal is broken | research-git is the replacement reproducibility-signal channel (repo/reimplementation inspection); do not add PwC back as a source |
Topic agent-skills is noisy since late 2025 |
~60% of results are LLM-generated shells with no real content | Prefer --owner filter on known authors; cross-check with awesome-lists |
| LLM-generated SKILL.md repos are visually convincing | Wastes extraction budget on zero-signal content | Red flags: no commit history before 2025-09, single-author, uniform file sizes, no issues/PRs, description ends in "...for Claude" |
| GitHub Search skips archived repos inconsistently | Dead repos appear in ranked output | Always pass archived:false in gh search; double-check in triage |
gh search star threshold sorts but doesn't filter |
Stars<100 repos appear on page 2+ | Use --limit 30 --sort stars and truncate manually |
Some high-signal repos use nested skill dirs (skill/, <name>-pro/) |
Default fetch misses SKILL.md | Always recursive-tree lookup, not root-only |
| OpenSSF Scorecard not present for private-forked public repos | Can't use Scorecard signal | Fall back to CODEOWNERS + commit-signing ratio |
gh api GraphQL tree recursion caps at ~100k entries |
Huge monorepos return empty tree | For monorepos, fetch the specific subtree by path, not the whole repo |
| Attribution strings break when source repo is renamed | Links 404 | Pin commit SHA; GitHub resolves old-name URLs at the SHA but not at branch refs |
Scenarios
Scenario 1 — Skill Discovery (Mode A)
Goal: enrich software-kafka with patterns from the agent-skill ecosystem.
scripts/search_repos.sh --kind skill kafka
# → ranked shortlist: confluentinc/kafka-agent-skill, redpanda-data/skills, ...
# Triage: keep 3, drop LLM-generated candidates
scripts/fetch_repo_assets.sh confluentinc/kafka-agent-skill \
docs/research/2026-04-23-skill-kafka/raw/ --kind skill
scripts/diff_against_local.sh \
docs/research/2026-04-23-skill-kafka/raw/confluentinc__kafka-agent-skill/ \
frameworks/shared-skills/skills/software-kafka/
# → diff shows 2 new reference files, 1 new quick-reference row
# Mine, synthesize, present research pack, apply with attribution
Scenario 2 — Practice Scan (Mode B)
Goal: redesign the team's PR workflow; harvest practices from 3 active monorepos.
scripts/search_repos.sh --kind practice monorepo
# → vercel/next.js, microsoft/vscode, nrwl/nx
scripts/fetch_repo_assets.sh vercel/next.js \
docs/research/2026-04-23-practice-pr/raw/ --kind practice
# fetches .github/workflows/, CONTRIBUTING.md, CODEOWNERS, PR template, release-please config
# Mine via practice-scan-targets.md rubric: merge queue config, required checks,
# auto-assignment rules, review SLA signals
# Output feeds dev-git-workflow, not this skill
Scenario 4 — Killer-Feature Mining (Mode D)
Goal: contribute the OSS clone signal to the bundle's killer-feature hunt for Firebase.
scripts/search_repos.sh --kind killer-feature firebase
# → supabase/supabase, appwrite/appwrite, nhost/nhost, pocketbase/pocketbase
# Triage: keep 3 with distinct owners; reject any that ship a paid hosted tier
# (their feature choices are biased by what they want to monetize)
scripts/fetch_repo_assets.sh supabase/supabase \
docs/research/2026-05-26-killer-feature-firebase/raw/ --kind killer-feature
# fetches README, CHANGELOG, docs/, website/, package.json
# Feed README + landing pages to LLM prompt §1 in references/killer-feature-mining.md
# → JSONL of replicated features with monetization framing
# Feed "Limitations vs Firebase" section to LLM prompt §2
# → JSONL of explicitly-omitted features (inverse signal — these are the
# parts of Firebase that OSS authors think aren't paid for)
# Append rows to ../startup-review-mining/assets/pay-trigger-ledger.tsv
# signal_type = oss_clone_focus
# Run ../startup-review-mining/scripts/converge_killer_features.py
# Convergence Rule decides which feature_ids cross the 3-of-6 threshold
Scenario 3 — Code Pattern Extraction (Mode C)
Goal: improve software-localisation with real React i18n patterns.
scripts/search_repos.sh --kind code react i18n
# → lingui-js/js-lingui, formatjs/formatjs, i18next/i18next
scripts/fetch_repo_assets.sh lingui-js/js-lingui \
docs/research/2026-04-23-code-react-i18n/raw/ --kind code
# fetches: package.json, tsconfig, representative source modules, test layout
# Mine via code-pattern-mining.md: ICU plurals handling, runtime vs build-time,
# type-safe message catalogs
# Output feeds software-localisation
Resources
Workflow references:
- references/discovery-protocol.md — finding repos via
ghCLI + awesome lists (all modes); velocity/dependency signals; beyond-GitHub hosts - references/code-search-syntax.md — Blackbird qualifiers,
gh search code, rate-limit budget, example queries for Modes A/B/C - references/graphql-triage.md — single-repo health query, batch-alias for 5-10 repos,
searchconnection for discovery - references/signal-quality.md — fake-star detection: fork ratio, GH Archive spike query, contributor account-age, issue/star floor
- references/git-history-forensics.md — verify practice/pattern claims against real git history: pickaxe
-S/-G,blame -w -C -M --ignore-revs-file,bisect run,range-diff, whengit loglies - references/extraction-protocol.md — fetching assets without cloning
- references/insight-mining.md — Mode A (skills) mining rubric
- references/practice-scan-targets.md — Mode B (practices) mining rubric
- references/code-pattern-mining.md — Mode C (code) mining rubric
- references/killer-feature-mining.md — Mode D (oss_clone_focus signal) mining rubric + LLM prompts
- references/attribution-rules.md — license compliance + citation format
- references/apply-protocol.md — merging insights into target skills
- references/claude-code-ecosystem-catalog.md — seed list of high-signal Claude Code / coding-agent repos for scan input
Scripts:
- scripts/search_repos.sh —
ghCLI wrapper, mode-aware - scripts/fetch_repo_assets.sh — mode-aware asset fetcher
- scripts/diff_against_local.sh — compare external vs local
Sources:
- data/sources.json — registries, high-signal authors, per-mode targets
Related Skills
- ../ai-deep-research/SKILL.md — web/paper research (this skill is repo research)
- ../dev-context-multi-repo/SKILL.md — code context across your own repos (this skill is external-repo pattern extraction)
- ../dev-dependency-management/SKILL.md — library/package selection (this skill is pattern extraction)
- ../dev-git-workflow/SKILL.md — target consumer of Mode B output
- ../dev-git-commit-message/SKILL.md — per-commit message generation (disjoint scope)
- ../agents-skills/SKILL.md — authoring your own skills (this skill enriches them)
Fact-Checking
Verify repo activity, license, and Scorecard against current GitHub before citing findings. Repo research drifts fast — re-check before merging insights. Always confirm the repo is not LLM-generated (commit history, issue activity, real contributors) before trusting any pattern from it.
GitHub API rate limits and git-version facts cited in this skill (Known Issues table, references/code-search-syntax.md, references/git-history-forensics.md) were verified against docs.github.com and git-scm.com on 2026-07-11 — re-verify at those sources before citing a specific number or version in a research pack, since both move faster than this skill's revision cadence.
Learnings Loop
Before applying this skill on a non-trivial task, read learnings.consolidated.md in this directory (and learnings.md if present).
After applying it, if you encountered a pattern worth remembering, a mistake worth preventing, or a domain fact that surprised you, append one dated bullet to learnings.md via agents-skills-feedback-loop/scripts/append_learning.py. Do not modify SKILL.md itself.