Trust & signals
Stars
Stars are GitHub bookmarks users give a repo. They approximate attention and are easy to compare, but they are a lagging, gameable popularity signal.
Stars are the count of GitHub users who bookmarked a repository. They are the most visible popularity number in open source: easy to read and compare across projects.
But stars are a blunt instrument. They accumulate over a project's whole life (so they favor older tools), can be inflated, and say nothing about whether the code is maintained or fit for your use.
In GraphCanon
GraphCanon shows stars as one fact among many and pairs them with maintenance and momentum, rather than ranking tools by stars alone.
See also
Related terms
Last reviewed 2026-07-09