---
title: "Trust signal"
type: "glossary-term"
category: "Trust & signals"
canonical_url: "https://www.graphcanon.com/glossary/trust-and-signals/trust-signal"
updated: "2026-07-09"
---

# Trust signal

**A trust signal is a sourced, dated heuristic that helps you judge a tool - a decision input, not a certification or safety guarantee.**

A **trust signal** is an evidence-based hint about a project's health or origin: how actively it is maintained, where it came from, whether a dependency scan found known issues. Each signal names its source and the date it was computed.

The framing matters: signals are inputs to your own judgement, not verdicts. A signal never claims a tool is "safe" or "production-ready".

## In GraphCanon

GraphCanon surfaces trust signals per tool and explains exactly how each is computed - and what it never claims - on the trust methodology page. There is no black-box composite score.

## See also

- [How trust signals work](/trust-methodology)

## Related terms

- [Maintenance label](/glossary/trust-and-signals/maintenance-label.md)
- [Security scan](/glossary/trust-and-signals/security-scan.md)
- [Provenance](/glossary/knowledge-graph/provenance.md)

[Trust & signals](/glossary/trust-and-signals.md) · [All glossary terms](/glossary.md)

---

**Machine-readable endpoints**

- JSON: [`/api/graphcanon`](/api/graphcanon)
- LLM index: [/llms.txt](/llms.txt)
- Full corpus: [/llms-full.txt](/llms-full.txt)

_GraphCanon - The knowledge graph for AI development. https://www.graphcanon.com/_