Iris – Open Source Sustainability Index

Iris is an open-source sustainability and repository health analysis tool that evaluates GitHub projects to determine how actively maintained, community-supported, and reliable they are over time.

Modern software systems rely heavily on open-source dependencies. However, there is no structured way to assess whether a repository is sustainable, well-maintained, or at risk of abandonment. Developers and organizations often manually review commit history, issue activity, contributor distribution, and repository structure before deciding to adopt a project. This process is inconsistent, subjective, and time-consuming.

Iris aims to provide a transparent and measurable approach to understanding the long-term health of open-source repositories.

Problem Statement

Open-source ecosystems face several ongoing challenges:

• Maintainer burnout and project abandonment

• High bus-factor risk where a single contributor dominates development

• Stale issues and slow pull request review cycles

• Lack of documentation, contribution guidelines, or automated testing

• Hidden sustainability risks in widely used dependencies

While platforms like GitHub expose raw data such as commits, issues, and contributors, they do not interpret this data in a structured or meaningful way.

Iris transforms repository metadata into a clear, explainable sustainability index that helps users evaluate project health objectively.

What Iris Does

Given a GitHub repository URL, Iris:

• Analyzes commit activity and development consistency

• Evaluates maintainer responsiveness through issue and pull request metrics

• Measures contributor diversity and participation levels

• Detects bus-factor and concentration risks

• Checks structural hygiene such as presence of license, documentation, and CI configuration

• Computes a weighted sustainability score from 0 to 100

• Visualizes development patterns using a repository-level commit heatmap

• Generates clear risk explanations for each score component

The scoring model is transparent and documented. Iris does not rely on opaque AI decisions; instead, it uses measurable and explainable metrics.

Core Evaluation Dimensions

The Sustainability Index is derived from five primary dimensions:

1. Activity – Commit frequency, recency, and consistency

2. Responsiveness – Issue closure rate and pull request merge time

3. Community Strength – Contributor count and active participation

4. Sustainability Risk – Bus factor and contribution concentration

5. Project Hygiene – License, documentation, and structural completeness

Each dimension contributes to the final score based on predefined weights, ensuring a balanced evaluation.

Intended Impact

Iris is designed for:

• Developers evaluating dependencies

• Contributors deciding where to contribute

• Organizations assessing open-source risk exposure

• Communities monitoring project sustainability

By making sustainability measurable and explainable, Iris encourages healthier open-source practices and better-informed decision-making.