Public record
Software health reportschema 0.34.0 · metrics 2.10.0 · 2026-09-18 20:14 UTC

saga-soft / novelWriter

novelWriter is an open source plain text editor designed for writing novels

PythonGPL-3.0★ 3,125 stars⑂ 216 forkssince Sep 2018View on GitHub ↗
KindDesktop applicationLibraryhow this is determined
#text-editor#novels#python#linux#windows#writing-novels#editor#pyqt6#qt6

saga-soft/novelWriter holds a health index of 91 out of 100, placing it in the Excellent band. It scores highest on Vitality (91/100) and lowest on AI Readiness (51/100). It was last updated 5 days ago. A single contributor accounts for most of its recent work.

91
overall / 100
Excellent

Software health index

Metrics are grouped into weighted categories on one standardized 1–100 scale. Overall starts as their weighted mean, calibrated against the distribution of the public record so bands carry percentile meaning; when public evidence triggers the High-Risk Jurisdiction Policy, the rating is adjusted and receives an At Risk ceiling of 34.

91
Exceptional93-100The record's top tier (≈ top 5%); essentially all checked criteria met
Excellent80-92Strong across the board; minor gaps
Good65-79Healthy; gaps are limited and manageable
Moderate50-64Acceptable with notable gaps; review recommended
Weak35-49Material weaknesses across several areas
At Risk20-34Significant weaknesses; adoption warrants caution
Critical1-19Severe problems (abandoned, single-maintainer, no hygiene)
VitalityCommunity &AdoptionSustainability &GovernanceEngineeringQualitySecurityAI Readiness

Score profile

Each axis is a category. The shape matters more than the average — a healthy subject fills the whole shape, while a spike-and-crater profile means strength in one dimension is masking risk in another.

The weighted overall 77 is calibrated to 91 on the published index scale (record calibration 2026-08-02).

Ownership

The Saga Software ProjectOrganization · verified domain
5 followers6 public repossince Jun 2025

This repository is backed by an organization — shared, accountable stewardship that can outlive any single maintainer.

Package ecosystems

RegistryPackageVersionDownloads / moVersionsLast publish
PyPInovelWriter26.25,71714313 days ago

Metrics by category

Vitality

Is the project alive — is code being written and are releases shipping?

91Excellent · 21% of overall

Development activity

92Excellent
How it's scored
36/36Push recency — last push 5 days ago
28.4/36Commit cadence — 41/52 weeks with commits
18/18Commit volume — 1,360 commits in the last year
10/10OpenSSF Scorecard: Maintained — 30 commit(s) and 8 issue activity found in the last 90 days -- score normalized to 10
Inputs used
commits_last_year1,360
human_commit_share1
days_since_last_push5
active_weeks_last_year41

Release discipline

90Excellent
How it's scored
27/27Ships releases — 100 releases published
36/36Release recency — latest release 13 days ago
27/27Release cadence — a release every ~17.3 days
0/10OpenSSF Scorecard: Signed-Releases — Project has not signed or included provenance with any releases.
Inputs used
releases_count100
latest_release_tagv26.2
releases_from_tagsno
days_since_latest_release13
mean_days_between_releases17.3

Community & Adoption

Does the project have users, downloads, attention, and a welcoming setup for contributors?

82Excellent · 17% of overall

Popularity & adoption

84Excellent
How it's scored
56.7/60Stars — 3,125 stars
19.4/25Forks — 216 forks
8.2/15Watchers — 31 watchers
Inputs used
forks216
stars3,125
watchers31
growth_stateunverified
growth_factor_pct100
growth_unverified_reasonno_history

Community health

92Excellent
How it's scored
22.5/22.5README
22.5/22.5License — recognized license (GPL-3.0)
18/18CONTRIBUTING guide
13.5/13.5Code of conduct
0/7.2Issue template
6.3/6.3PR template
Inputs used
has_readmeyes
has_licenseyes
readme_badges3
has_contributingyes
has_issue_templateno
has_code_of_conductyes
readme_badge_servicesgithub.com, shields.io
has_pull_request_templateyes

Ecosystem adoption (downloads)

63Moderate
How it's scored
50.1/80Monthly downloads — 5,717 downloads/month across pypi
0/20Registry dependents — not reported by this ecosystem
Inputs used
packagesnovelWriter
dependents—
ecosystemspypi
total_downloads—
monthly_downloads5,717
unverified_packages_excluded—
Excluded from scoring (no data or not applicable): Registry dependents. Remaining weights renormalized.

Sustainability & Governance

Will the project survive its people — bus factor, responsiveness, who backs it, and package upkeep?

69Good · 23% of overall

Maintainer resilience (bus factor)

33At Risk
How it's scored
9/54Bus factor — 1 contributor(s) cover half of all commits
0.5/22.5Commit distribution — top contributor authored 98% of commits
13.5/13.5Contributor breadth — 25 contributors
10/10OpenSSF Scorecard: Contributors — project has 7 contributing companies or organizations
Inputs used
bus_factor1
contributors_sampled25
top_contributor_share0.978

Issue & PR responsiveness

94Exceptional
How it's scored
37.6/42Issue resolution — 90% of issues closed
29.1/30PR acceptance — 1,571/1,618 decided PRs merged
0/13Newcomer PR acceptance — no first-time contributor's PR decided in 30d
15/15OpenSSF Scorecard: Code-Review — all changesets reviewed
Inputs used
merged_prs1,571
open_issues108
closed_issues925
prs_merged_7d0
prs_decided_7d0
prs_merged_30d0
prs_decided_30d0
issue_closed_ratio0.895
closed_unmerged_prs47
first_time_authors_30d0
first_time_prs_merged_30d0
first_time_prs_decided_30d0
Excluded from scoring (no data or not applicable): Newcomer PR acceptance. Remaining weights renormalized.

Ownership & stewardship

64Moderate
How it's scored
30/30Ownership backing — organization-owned
20/20Verified domain
5.6/25Owner reach — 5 followers of saga-soft
8.7/25Track record — 6 public repos, account ~1 yr old
Inputs used
followers5
owner_typeOrganization
is_verifiedyes
owner_loginsaga-soft
public_repos6
account_age_days460

Package maintenance

100Exceptional
How it's scored
25/25Published & resolvable — 1 package(s) on pypi
35/35Publish recency — latest publish 13 days ago
20/20Version history — 143 published versions
20/20Not deprecated — active, not deprecated or yanked
Inputs used
packagesnovelWriter
ecosystemspypi
any_deprecatedno
min_days_since_publish13

Engineering Quality

Are baseline engineering and documentation practices in place?

86Excellent · 19% of overall

Engineering practices

84Excellent
How it's scored
24/24CI workflows — 17 workflow(s)
24/24Tests present
16/16Linter config — pyproject.toml ([tool.ruff])
0/9.6Pre-commit hooks
0/6.4.editorconfig
20/20OpenSSF Scorecard: CI-Tests — 9 out of 9 merged PRs checked by a CI test -- score normalized to 10
Inputs used
has_ciyes
has_testsyes
has_editorconfigno
has_linter_configyes
has_precommit_configno

Documentation

90Excellent
How it's scored
30/30README
25/25Documentation directory
15/15Documentation / homepage site — https://novelwriter.io
10/10Repository description
10/10Topics — 9 topics
0/10Wiki
Inputs used
topicstext-editor, novels, python, linux, windows, writing-novels, editor, pyqt6, qt6
has_wikino
homepagehttps://novelwriter.io
docs_sitehttps://novelwriter.io
has_readmeyes
has_docs_diryes
has_descriptionyes

Security

Are visible security and supply-chain practices strong, without unresolved high-risk jurisdiction exposure?

60Moderate · 16% of overall

Security posture

50Moderate
How it's scored
6.8/7.5Binary-Artifacts — binaries present in source code
3/7.5Branch-Protection — branch protection is not maximal on development and all release branches
2.5/2.5CI-Tests — 9 out of 9 merged PRs checked by a CI test -- score normalized to 10
0/2.5CII-Best-Practices — no effort to earn an OpenSSF best practices badge detected
7.5/7.5Code-Review — all changesets reviewed
2.5/2.5Contributors — project has 7 contributing companies or organizations
10/10Dangerous-Workflow — no dangerous workflow patterns detected
0/7.5Dependency-Update-Tool — no update tool detected
0/5Fuzzing — project is not fuzzed
2.5/2.5License — license file detected
7.5/7.5Maintained — 30 commit(s) and 8 issue activity found in the last 90 days -- score normalized to 10
0/5Packaging — no data
0/5Pinned-Dependencies — dependency not pinned by hash detected -- score normalized to 0
0/5SAST — SAST tool is not run on all commits -- score normalized to 0
0/5Security-Policy — security policy file not detected
0/7.5Signed-Releases — Project has not signed or included provenance with any releases.
0/7.5Token-Permissions — detected GitHub workflow tokens with excessive permissions
7.5/7.5Vulnerabilities — 0 existing vulnerabilities detected
Inputs used
sourceopenssf_scorecard
checks_evaluated17
scorecard_versionv5.5.0
checks_inconclusive1
scorecard_aggregate5
Excluded from scoring (no data or not applicable): Packaging. Remaining weights renormalized.

Dependency advisories

100Exceptional
How it's scored
35/35Direct dependencies free of known advisories — no direct dependency carries a known advisory
25/25Indirect dependencies free of known advisories — no indirect dependency carries a known advisory
0/40No advisories left outstanding — no advisory carries a publication date
Inputs used
sourceosv
advisories0
affected_packages0
assessed_packages3
unassessed_packages0
affected_by_severitynone
direct_affected_packages0
Excluded from scoring (no data or not applicable): No advisories left outstanding. Remaining weights renormalized. Matched the pypi:novelWriter@26.2 runtime dependency closure — what installing the published package pulls in — 3 packages. Reachability is not analyzed.

AI Readiness

How well is the repo equipped to be developed and maintained with AI coding agents? Carries a deliberately small weight (4%): agent tooling is a real maintenance signal, but a repository with none can still reach 100/100.

51Moderate · 4% of overall

Agent context & guidance

14Critical
How it's scored
0/45Agent instructions — no CLAUDE.md / AGENTS.md / editor rules
0/15Machine-readable docs (llms.txt)
13.9/40Legible commit history — 26 of 100 human commits state their intent (structured subject or explanatory body)
Inputs used
has_llms_txtno
llms_txt_url—
legible_history_share0.26
agent_instruction_files—
agent_instruction_max_bytes—

Verify loop (build / test / typecheck)

61Moderate
How it's scored
18/18One-command bootstrap — docs/Makefile
22/22Automated tests
11/11Lint / format config — pyproject.toml ([tool.ruff])
0/11Static type checking
10/10Reproducible environment — lockfile
0/10Demonstrated agent practice — no agent-authored commits among the last 100
0/8Automated maintenance — no automated dependency updates observed
0/10OpenSSF Scorecard: Pinned-Dependencies — dependency not pinned by hash detected -- score normalized to 0
Inputs used
has_nixno
has_testsyes
lockfilesuv.lock
has_dockerfileno
typed_languageno
bootstrap_filesdocs/Makefile
has_devcontainerno
has_linter_configyes
typecheck_configs—
agent_commit_share0
toolchain_manifests—
dependency_bot_commit_share0

Code legibility for models

50Moderate
How it's scored
0/45Type-checkable code — Python without a type-check config
49.5/55Manageable file sizes — 21/211 source files over 60KB
Inputs used
primary_languagePython
largest_source_bytes227,733
source_files_sampled211
oversized_source_files21

Machine-readable interfaces

100Exceptional
How it's scored
0/40API schema (OpenAPI/GraphQL/proto) — not applicable to this kind of software
0/20MCP server — not applicable to this kind of software
40/40Runnable examples — sample
Inputs used
example_dirssample
has_mcp_signalno
api_schema_files—
interfaces_expected_of—
Excluded from scoring (no data or not applicable): API schema (OpenAPI/GraphQL/proto), MCP server. Remaining weights renormalized.

Key facts

3,125GitHub stars
25contributors
1,360commits, last 12 months
5days since last push
100releases
1bus factor
108open issues
PyPIpackage ecosystems

Data collection warnings

  • Star history unavailable: GitHub GraphQL error: Resource not accessible by personal access token

More detail

Star and fork history 0 ★ / 216 ⇿
0Stars
216Forks
100Releases

When each star and fork was added, collected from GitHub and bucketed by day. Cumulative growth sits directly above the daily additions it is made of, so the two read against each other: steady organic accretion looks nothing like an abrupt, short-lived burst. Where that difference is measurable, it is reported as growth authenticity.

04080120160200240216132019-062023-022026-09
Major 0Minor 0Patch 48

Each point covers 7 days.

OpenSSF Scorecard 5.0 / 10
5.0aggregate

Independent, tool-agnostic security assessment from the open-source OpenSSF Scorecard. Each check rewards a security practice, not a specific vendor's tool. Checks Scorecard could not determine are marked n/a and excluded from the security score (never counted as zero).Scorecard v5.5.0 · 2026-09-18 20:13 UTC

9Binary-Artifactsbinaries present in source code
4Branch-Protectionbranch protection is not maximal on development and all release branches
10CI-Tests9 out of 9 merged PRs checked by a CI test -- score normalized to 10
0CII-Best-Practicesno effort to earn an OpenSSF best practices badge detected
10Code-Reviewall changesets reviewed
10Contributorsproject has 7 contributing companies or organizations
10Dangerous-Workflowno dangerous workflow patterns detected
0Dependency-Update-Toolno update tool detected
0Fuzzingproject is not fuzzed
10Licenselicense file detected
10Maintained30 commit(s) and 8 issue activity found in the last 90 days -- score normalized to 10
n/aPackagingpackaging workflow not detected
0Pinned-Dependenciesdependency not pinned by hash detected -- score normalized to 0
0SASTSAST tool is not run on all commits -- score normalized to 0
0Security-Policysecurity policy file not detected
0Signed-ReleasesProject has not signed or included provenance with any releases.
0Token-Permissionsdetected GitHub workflow tokens with excessive permissions
10Vulnerabilities0 existing vulnerabilities detected
Direct dependencies 3
RegistryPackageVersion constraintManifest
PyPIpyqt6>=6.4pyproject.toml
PyPIpyenchant>=3.3.0pyproject.toml
PyPIpyobjc-framework-Cocoa—pyproject.toml
All dependencies 52

Full resolved dependency set from the GitHub dependency graph: 3 direct and 49 indirect (transitive) packages. The transitive closure is complete when the repository commits a lockfile.

RegistryPackageVersionRelation
PyPIpyenchant3.3.0direct
PyPIpyobjc-framework-cocoa12.2.2direct
PyPIpyqt66.11.0direct
PyPIaccessible-pygments0.0.5indirect
PyPIalabaster1.0.0indirect
PyPIbabel2.18.0indirect
PyPIbeautifulsoup44.15.0indirect
PyPIcertifi2026.7.22indirect
PyPIcharset-normalizer3.5.1indirect
PyPIclick8.5.0indirect
PyPIcolorama0.4.6indirect
PyPIcoverage7.16.0indirect
PyPIdocutils0.22.4indirect
PyPIidna3.19indirect
PyPIimagesize2.0.1indirect
PyPIiniconfig2.3.0indirect
PyPIjinja23.1.6indirect
PyPImarkupsafe3.0.3indirect
PyPInodeenv1.10.0indirect
PyPIpackaging26.3indirect
PyPIpluggy1.6.0indirect
PyPIpydata-sphinx-theme0.20.0indirect
PyPIpygments2.21.0indirect
PyPIpyobjc-core12.2.2indirect
PyPIpyqt6-qt66.11.2indirect
PyPIpyqt6-sip13.12.0indirect
PyPIpyright1.1.411indirect
PyPIpytest9.1.1indirect
PyPIpytest-qt4.5.0indirect
PyPIpytest-timeout2.4.0indirect
PyPIpyyaml6.0.3indirect
PyPIrequests2.34.2indirect
PyPIroman-numerals4.1.0indirect
PyPIruff0.16.5indirect
PyPIsnowballstemmer3.1.1indirect
PyPIsoupsieve2.9.2indirect
PyPIsphinx9.0.4indirect
PyPIsphinx9.1.0indirect
PyPIsphinx-book-theme1.4.0indirect
PyPIsphinx-copybutton0.5.2indirect
PyPIsphinx-design0.7.0indirect
PyPIsphinx-favicon1.1.0indirect
PyPIsphinx-intl2.4.0indirect
PyPIsphinxcontrib-applehelp2.0.0indirect
PyPIsphinxcontrib-devhelp2.0.0indirect
PyPIsphinxcontrib-htmlhelp2.1.0indirect
PyPIsphinxcontrib-jsmath1.0.1indirect
PyPIsphinxcontrib-qthelp2.0.0indirect
PyPIsphinxcontrib-serializinghtml2.0.0indirect
PyPItyping-extensions4.16.0indirect
PyPItzdata2026.3indirect
PyPIurllib32.7.0indirect
Dependency advisories 0

Installing pypi:novelWriter@26.2 pulls in 3 packages, direct and transitive: 0 carry known advisories, of which 0 are direct dependencies.

No known advisories affect the assessed dependencies.

An advisory means the version recorded in the dependency graph falls inside an advisory’s affected range. Reachability is not analysed, and the graph includes development and test pins — a finding may concern tooling rather than shipped software.

Raw JSON report machine-readable

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Scores are signals, not warranties. They reflect publicly visible practices on GitHub — not a code audit, and not a security guarantee.

Missing data is excluded and weights renormalized, never scored as zero. Methodology is versioned and open: metrics v2.10.0, schema v0.34.0 — full methodology · metrics wiki.

How one result sits in the wider record: aggregate statistics — PyPI.