UK Public Sector GitHub Observatory
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UKHomeOfficeForms / Code

9 languages, 2.3 MB of source, and what the live estate is written in today.

Language figures come from GitHub's own per-repository byte counts, which measure source rather than a single headline label. File counts and repository sizes come from the mirrors themselves. The two tell different stories, and the difference is the point.

The codebase

9
languages in use
2.3 MB of source
1.4k
files at HEAD
across every analysed repository
0 B
on disk as mirrors
full history, every branch and tag
6.5 MB
largest repository
hof-guide

What stands out

One archived repository holds 37% of all the bytes.

hof-guide is 6.5 MB of git - a 2013 static snapshot of www.gov.uk, not source code. It single-handedly makes HTML the largest language by volume (4% of all source bytes). Any size or language statistic that does not exclude it is measuring an archive, not a codebase.

Sizes here are GitHub's reported figures.

This organisation was harvested with blobless partial clones, which fetch every commit and file path but not file contents, so there is no local size to measure against. Checked elsewhere in this dataset against 1,526 fully mirrored repositories, GitHub's reported size is accurate to within about six percent.

Ruby is the house language, but its share is falling.

Ruby is the primary language of 0% of archived repositories but only 0% of live ones. Python, Go, TypeScript and HCL have taken the difference - the signature of a shift from monolithic Rails publishing apps toward data pipelines, infrastructure-as-code and platform tooling.

Most repositories are small; a handful are enormous.

95% of repositories are under a megabyte of git data. The estate is not a monolith - it is a very long tail of small services, gems and prototypes around a few large publishing applications.

Languages, two ways

By volume of source

Bytes of code. Dominated by archived static HTML.

JavaScriptJavaScript: 1.9 MB1.9 MBSCSSSCSS: 269.8 kB269.8 kBHTMLHTML: 99.1 kB99.1 kBVueVue: 14.2 kB14.2 kBGherkinGherkin: 12.8 kB12.8 kBCSSCSS: 7.1 kB7.1 kBDockerfileDockerfile: 1.1 kB1.1 kBShellShell: 747 B747 BSmartySmarty: 90 B90 B

By number of repositories

How many repositories name each language as their primary one. A better guide to what engineers actually work in.

JavaScriptJavaScript: 3939HTMLHTML: 1111SCSSSCSS: 66CSSCSS: 22ShellShell: 22DockerfileDockerfile: 22GherkinGherkin: 11SmartySmarty: 11VueVue: 11

Live estate versus archive

The same language ranking, split by whether the repository is still active. The shift is the clearest signal of technical direction in the whole dataset.

Active repositories

JavaScriptJavaScript: 1818VueVue: 11SCSSSCSS: 00HTMLHTML: 00

Archived repositories

JavaScriptJavaScript: 1818VueVue: 00SCSSSCSS: 11HTMLHTML: 11

Scale

Repository size distribution

Git data per repository, log-ish buckets.

1914.29.54.80< 10 kB: 9< 10 kB< 100 kB: 13< 100 kB< 1 MB: 19< 1 MB< 10 MB: 2< 10 MB< 100 MB: 0< 100 MB100 MB +: 0100 MB +

Commits against files

Each circle is a repository, sized by number of distinct authors. Both axes are logarithmic. The diagonal band is the normal relationship between codebase size and churn; outliers above it are long-lived apps with heavy iteration, below it are dumps and imports.

2.5k549.0121.827.06.014.621.096.4442.0busboy-body-parser: 42 commits, 10 files, 7 authorseslint-config-hof: 40 commits, 6 files, 10 authorsfs-tree-traverse: 14 commits, 9 files, 3 authorshof: 2,474 commits, 442 files, 95 authorshof-behaviour-address-lookup: 62 commits, 28 files, 9 authorshof-behaviour-emailer: 27 commits, 12 files, 7 authorshof-behaviour-feedback: 25 commits, 18 files, 6 authorshof-behaviour-hooks: 21 commits, 14 files, 4 authorshof-behaviour-loop: 26 commits, 29 files, 4 authorshof-behaviour-session: 14 commits, 13 files, 5 authorshof-behaviour-summary-page: 57 commits, 14 files, 12 authorshof-build: 187 commits, 27 files, 14 authorshof-component-date: 42 commits, 15 files, 8 authorshof-controllers: 189 commits, 36 files, 20 authorshof-emailer: 101 commits, 32 files, 15 authorshof-examples: 82 commits, 40 files, 8 authorshof-form-controller: 260 commits, 32 files, 32 authorshof-form-wizard: 296 commits, 47 files, 28 authorshof-frontend-toolkit: 150 commits, 54 files, 21 authorshof-generator: 137 commits, 43 files, 13 authorshof-govuk-template: 45 commits, 15 files, 11 authorshof-guide: 172 commits, 83 files, 18 authorshof-guide-v2: 15 commits, 81 files, 2 authorshof-logger: 18 commits, 11 files, 9 authorshof-middleware: 103 commits, 20 files, 21 authorshof-middleware-healthcheck: 9 commits, 15 files, 5 authorshof-middleware-markdown: 18 commits, 13 files, 8 authorshof-model: 98 commits, 17 files, 19 authorshof-skeleton: 40 commits, 23 files, 6 authorshof-template-mixins: 369 commits, 27 files, 39 authorshof-template-partials: 178 commits, 63 files, 31 authorshof-theme-govuk: 102 commits, 31 files, 19 authorshof-transpiler: 77 commits, 26 files, 13 authorshof-util-autofill: 44 commits, 10 files, 6 authorshof-util-countries: 11 commits, 8 files, 4 authorshof-util-react: 9 commits, 8 files, 4 authorshof-util-reqres: 15 commits, 11 files, 5 authorshof-util-testdata: 12 commits, 13 files, 4 authorshof-vulnerabilities-scanner: 33 commits, 10 files, 3 authorsroman-numeral-katas: 6 commits, 1 files, 2 authorsfiles at HEAD (log)commits (log)

The shape of a repository

Directory layout is the cheapest reliable signal of what a repository actually is. app/ with config/ and spec/ is a Rails application; src/ with test/ is Java or Node. Counted by how many repositories contain each top-level directory at HEAD.

Most common top-level directories

liblib: 2525testtest: 2424viewsviews: 44assetsassets: 44binbin: 33buildbuild: 22configconfig: 22templatestemplates: 22appsapps: 22frontendfrontend: 11sandboxsandbox: 11componentscomponents: 11utilitiesutilities: 11wizardwizard: 11controllercontroller: 11middlewaremiddleware: 11docsdocs: 11transpilertranspiler: 11

Most common file extensions

By total file count across the estate.

.js.js: 556556.json.json: 152152.html.html: 140140.md.md: 135135.scss.scss: 100100.yml.yml: 5252.png.png: 4848.opts.opts: 1414.svg.svg: 99.lock.lock: 66.woff.woff: 44.woff2.woff2: 44.feature.feature: 33.gif.gif: 33.sh.sh: 22.yaml.yaml: 22

The twenty largest repositories

RepositoryLanguageGit size CommitsFilesStatus
hof-guideSCSS6.5 MB17283archived
hofJavaScript4.5 MB2,474442active
hof-theme-govukJavaScript755.7 kB10231archived
hof-form-controllerJavaScript635.9 kB26032archived
hof-emailerJavaScript532.5 kB10132archived
hof-template-mixinsJavaScript371.7 kB36927archived
hof-template-partialsHTML367.6 kB17863archived
hof-behaviour-loopJavaScript344.1 kB2629active
hof-skeletonJavaScript331.8 kB4023active
hof-guide-v2Vue326.7 kB1581active
hof-behaviour-summary-pageJavaScript312.3 kB5714archived
hof-frontend-toolkitJavaScript290.8 kB15054archived
hof-controllersJavaScript283.6 kB18936archived
hof-form-wizardJavaScript246.8 kB29647archived
hof-modelJavaScript243.7 kB9817archived
hof-buildJavaScript231.4 kB18727archived
hof-vulnerabilities-scannerJavaScript154.6 kB3310active
eslint-config-hofJavaScript130.0 kB406active
hof-generatorJavaScript121.9 kB13743archived
hof-behaviour-emailerJavaScript109.6 kB2712archived