Skip to content

Update README #16

New issue

Have a question about this project? Sign up for a free GitHub account to open an issue and contact its maintainers and the community.

Sign up for GitHub

By clicking “Sign up for GitHub”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy statement. We’ll occasionally send you account related emails.

Already on GitHub? Sign in to your account

Merged
merged 1 commit into from
Oct 29, 2025
Merged

Update README #16

Changes from all commits
Commits
Show all changes
1 commit
Select commit
File filter

Filter by extension

Filter by extension
Conversations
Failed to load comments.
Loading
Jump to
Jump to file
Failed to load files.
Loading
Diff view
Diff view
184 changes: 114 additions & 70 deletions README.md
View file
Open in desktop
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
@@ -1,93 +1,137 @@
# prcost

Calculate the real-world cost of GitHub pull requests using empirically-validated software engineering research. Provides detailed breakdowns of development effort, review costs, coordination overhead, and delay impacts.
Calculate the real-world cost of GitHub pull requests using empirically-validated software engineering research. Measures at a PR, repo, or organization level.

## Hosted Web Interface

Try https://cost.github.codegroove.app/ - it only has access to public repositories, so if you need to take that account for accuracy, run prcost locally.

## CLI Example

```
$ prcost https://github.com/chainguard-dev/apko/pull/1860

https://github.com/chainguard-dev/apko/pull/1860
Rate: $155.71/hr • Salary: $249,000.00 • Benefits: 1.3x

Author
──────
Development Effort $7,531.93 132 LOC • 2.0 days
GitHub Activity $156.25 2 sessions • 1.0 hrs
GitHub Context Switching $208.33 1.3 hrs
────────────
Subtotal $7,896.51 2.1 days

Participants
────────────
philroche
Review Activity $75.00 1 sessions • 29 min
Context Switching $104.17 40 min
justinvreeland
Review Activity $75.00 1 sessions • 29 min
Context Switching $104.17 40 min
────────────
Subtotal $358.33 2.3 hrs

Merge Delay
───────────
Delivery $9,481.36 2.5 days (capped)
Coordination $3,160.45 20.2 hrs (capped)
────────────
Subtotal $12,641.81 3.4 days

Future Costs
────────────
Code Churn (18% drift) $1,155.39 7.4 hrs
Review $75.00 29 min
Merge $52.08 20 min
Context Switching $208.33 1.3 hrs
────────────
Subtotal $1,490.81 9.5 hrs
## Installation

═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
Total $22,387.47 6.0 days
Local installation, which authenticates using the GitHub command-line (`gh`) or GITHUB_TOKEN:

```

## Installation

```bash
go install github.com/codeGROOVE-dev/prcost/cmd/prcost@latest
```

Alternatively, you can use our hosted version: https://cost.github.codegroove.app/ - but it only has access to public repositories.

## Usage

```bash
# Single PR analysis
prcost https://github.com/owner/repo/pull/123
prcost --salary 300000 https://github.com/owner/repo/pull/123
CLI

# Repository analysis (samples 30 PRs from last 90 days)
prcost --org kubernetes --repo kubernetes
prcost --org myorg --repo myrepo --samples 50 --days 30
```
% prcost --org exera-dev

Analyzing 30 sampled PRs from 91 total PRs (50 human, 41 bot) across exera-dev (last 60 days)...

exera-dev (organization)
Period: Last 60 days • Total PRs: 91 (33 human, 57 bot) • Authors: 10 • Sampled: 30
Avg Open Time: 2.4w (human: 8.7h, bot: 3.7w)

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Average PR (sampled over 60 day period) │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Development Costs (33 PRs, 13 LOC)
────────────────────────────────────────
New Development $ 344.58 2.2h (7 LOC)
Adaptation $ 20.34 7.8m (5 LOC)
GitHub Activity $ 66.57 25.7m (2.6 events)
Context Switching $ 27.04 10.4m (0.5 sessions)
Automated Updates — 0.0m (57 PRs, 5 LOC)
──────────────
Subtotal $ 458.54 2.9h (56.8%)

Participant Costs
─────────────────
Review Activity $ 5.02 1.9m (0.7 reviews)
GitHub Activity $ 37.18 14.3m (2.4 events)
Context Switching $ 38.88 15.0m (0.8 sessions)
──────────────
Subtotal $ 81.07 31.3m (10.0%)

Delay Costs (human PRs avg 8.7h open, bot PRs avg 3.7w)
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Workstream blockage $ 98.09 37.8m (33 PRs)
Automated Updates $ 126.77 48.9m (57 PRs)
PR Tracking $ 35.63 13.7m (25 open PRs)
──────────────
Subtotal $ 260.49 1.7h (32.2%)

# Organization-wide analysis
prcost --org chainguard-dev --samples 50 --days 60
Future Costs
────────────
Review $ 3.64 1.4m (24 PRs)
Merge $ 6.92 2.7m (24 PRs)
Context Switching $ 27.04 10.4m (0.8 sessions)
──────────────
Subtotal $ 37.60 14.5m (4.7%)

Preventable Loss Total $ 260.49 1.7h (32.2%)
════════════════════════════════════════════════════
Average Total $ 807.86 5.2h


┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Estimated costs within a 60 day period (extrapolated) │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Development Costs (33 PRs, 1.2k LOC)
────────────────────────────────────────
New Development $ 31,356.75 8.4d (712 LOC)
Adaptation $ 1,850.92 11.9h (473 LOC)
GitHub Activity $ 6,058.14 38.9h (233 events)
Context Switching $ 2,461.02 15.8h (48 sessions)
Automated Updates — 0.0m (57 PRs, 485 LOC)
──────────────
Subtotal $ 41,726.82 11.2d (56.8%)

Participant Costs
─────────────────
Review Activity $ 456.61 2.9h (60 reviews)
GitHub Activity $ 3,383.11 21.7h (215 events)
Context Switching $ 3,537.72 22.7h (69 sessions)
──────────────
Subtotal $ 7,377.44 47.4h (10.0%)

Delay Costs (human PRs avg 8.7h open, bot PRs avg 3.7w)
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Workstream blockage $ 8,926.47 2.4d (33 PRs)
Automated Updates $ 11,536.14 3.1d (57 PRs)
PR Tracking $ 3,242.19 20.8h (25 open PRs)
──────────────
Subtotal $ 23,704.80 6.3d (32.2%)

Future Costs
────────────
Review $ 331.30 2.1h (24 PRs)
Merge $ 629.42 4.0h (24 PRs)
Context Switching $ 2,461.02 15.8h (72 sessions)
──────────────
Subtotal $ 3,421.74 22.0h (4.7%)

Preventable Loss Total $ 23,704.80 6.3d (32.2%)
════════════════════════════════════════════════════
Total $ 73,515.44 2.8w

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ DEVELOPMENT EFFICIENCY: D (67.8%) - Not good my friend. │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ MERGE VELOCITY: F (2.4w) - Failing │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Weekly waste per PR author: $ 276.56 1.8h (10 authors)
If Sustained for 1 Year: $ 144,204.17 0.4 headcount

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ MERGE TIME MODELING │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
If you lowered your average merge time to 1.0h, you would save
~$126,616.08/yr in engineering overhead (+28.4% throughput).
```

### Web Interface
Web interface:

```bash
go run ./cmd/server
```

### Sampling Strategy

Repository and organization modes use time-bucket sampling to ensure even distribution across the time period, avoiding temporal clustering that would bias estimates.

- **30 samples** (default): Fast analysis with ±18% confidence interval
- **50 samples**: More accurate with ±14% confidence interval (1.3× better precision)

## Cost Model: Scientific Foundations

This model synthesizes empirical research from software engineering economics, cognitive psychology, and organizational behavior. Individual PR estimates exhibit variance due to developer heterogeneity; statistical validity improves with aggregate analysis (n ≥ 25).
Expand Down
Loading