donnemartin/system-design-primer

What These Metrics Mean

Adjusted Score

Primary synthetic code indicator. Raw score normalised per 1,000 lines of code and multiplied by the temporal discount factor. This is the definitive comparative metric — use it to rank repositories by AI authorship density.

Raw Score

The unmodified sum of all severity-weighted, context-multiplied pattern match scores before temporal discounting. Reflects the absolute signal strength independent of when the repository was last active.

Time Factor

The temporal discount multiplier (0–100%) applied to the raw score. Repositories last updated before ChatGPT's launch (Nov 2022) receive a 5% factor. Full signal is only assigned to repositories active in the post-adoption era (Jan 2024+).

Pattern Hits

Total count of individual pattern matches across all files and categories. A high hit count with a low score may indicate a very large codebase with isolated AI snippets; a low count with a high score indicates dense, concentrated AI signatures.

HC Hit Rate

High+Critical pattern hits per file, averaged across the repository. This orthogonal signal catches repositories where a few files are densely packed with high-severity AI tells — a strong indicator even when the normalised score appears moderate due to codebase size.

Lines of Code / Files

Total lines and files analysed. The scanner examines 94 file extensions. These denominators are used to normalise the score, enabling fair comparison between repositories of vastly different sizes.

Pattern Findings

The scanner identified 66 distinct pattern matches across 4 syntactic categories. Each entry below represents a discrete location in the source code where the engine recorded a statistically significant AI authorship indicator. Expand any category row to inspect the individual file paths, line numbers, code snippets, and the lexical context (CODE, COMMENT, or STRING) in which each match was detected.

Reading the findings table: The Severity column indicates the diagnostic confidence level (CRITICAL / HIGH / MEDIUM / LOW). The Context column identifies whether the match occurred inside executable code, an inline comment, or a string literal — comment-context matches receive a ×1.5 weight because LLMs systematically over-annotate. The ⚡ bolt icon marks clustered matches: three or more patterns within a 10-line window, each receiving an additional ×1.5 density multiplier as dense clusters constitute far stronger evidence of synthetic authorship than isolated hits.