Trust & signals
Momentum (star velocity)
Also known as: Star velocity
Momentum is the recent rate of change in a tool's popularity - typically its star gain over the last 30 days - a freshness signal, not a quality score.
Momentum measures how fast a project is gaining traction lately, most often as its change in GitHub stars over a trailing window. It highlights what is heating up right now, independent of absolute size.
Velocity is noisy - a launch, a conference talk, or a viral post can spike it - so read it as attention, not endorsement.
In GraphCanon
GraphCanon computes 30-day star deltas from metric snapshots and uses them to rank the trending page. It is explicitly a freshness signal, not a measure of quality.
See also
Related terms
Last reviewed 2026-07-09