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A reputation index from mitchellh's Vouch trust files

A reputation index from mitchellh's Vouch trust files

by rosslazer·Feb 13, 2026·18 points·3 comments
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AI Analysis

●●SolidBig BrainNiche Gem

Clever signal extraction from Vouch's plain-text format, but adoption depends on Vouch uptake.

Strengths
  • •Weighted scoring by repo stars (ln formula) means high-signal repos count more than zero-star ones.
  • •Daily crawl and aggregation across GitHub creates a novel cross-repo trust layer.
  • •Clear domain fit: solves a real problem for maintainers using Vouch filtering.
Weaknesses
  • •Adoption friction: only works if repos expose VOUCHED.td files and use Vouch action.
  • •Narrow audience: Vouch itself is niche (used by Ghostty, few others); limits utility.
Target Audience

Open-source maintainers, developers evaluating contributor trust, project leads using Vouch system

Similar To

Vouch (Mitchell Hashimoto's trust system)

Post Description

I was inspired by mitchellh's Vouch project, an explicit trust system where maintainers vouch for contributors before they can interact with a repo. Ghostty uses it to filter out AI slop PRs.

Because Vouch exposes the vouch list as a plain text file (VOUCHED.td), I realized I could aggregate them across GitHub and build a reputation index. A crawler finds every VOUCHED.td file, pulls the entries, and computes a weighted score per user. Vouches from high-star repos count more than vouches from zero-star repos.

Next step is to wire up an API so that the vouch GH action can start to use this data to auto approve contributors.

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