About
The Tinker Index is a composite metric that tracks developer ecosystem activity across multiple platforms. It measures whether the rise of AI-assisted coding tools is translating into measurably increased software development output.
Data Sources
GitHub — New public repositories created and pull requests opened per day via the GitHub Search API.
npm — Daily package downloads and new packages published per day from the npm registry.
PyPI — Daily Python package downloads via pypistats.org, and new packages published per day from the PyPI registry.
crates.io — New Rust crates published per day.
RubyGems — New gem versions published per day, tracking Ruby ecosystem development velocity.
Product Hunt — New products launched per day, measuring the rate of new software products being shipped.
Docker Hub — New public Docker image repositories created per day.
VS Code Marketplace — New extensions published per day, measuring developer tooling creation.
Mobile App Dev — Combined daily npm downloads for React Native, Expo, and Capacitor — a proxy for mobile app development activity across iOS and Android.
Index Calculation
All metrics are expressed as daily rates of activity. Sources that report cumulative totals (e.g. total npm packages, total Docker repos) are automatically converted to daily deltas (new packages/day, new repos/day) so that every metric reflects the current velocity of development, not just scale.
Each rate metric is normalized to a base-100 index relative to January 1, 2024. A value of 100 means the metric is at its baseline level; 120 means 20% above baseline.
All metrics are direct signals: higher activity indicates increased development output.
The composite index is a weighted average of all normalized metrics, with a 7-day simple moving average applied to smooth out weekday/weekend cycles. Missing data points are handled by re-weighting the remaining metrics proportionally.