How a plant grows, and why it wilts
Where the water comes from
Nobody logs updates by hand. The garden watches the places makers already publish:
- Public changelog pages and their RSS feeds
- GitHub releases, or commit counts from a private repo (counts and dates only)
- App Store and Google Play version history
- npm, PyPI and crates.io releases
- New pages in a sitemap
- A private email address you can forward release notes to
How much each update counts
An update is read and sorted before it counts: a new feature is worth more than a bug fix, and a dependency bump is worth nothing. Points fade with a two-week half-life, so what matters is what shipped lately. At most five updates a day count, so posting ten small entries doesn’t help.
- Major feature: 10 points
- New release or version: 6 points
- Minor feature or improvement: 5 points
- Bug fix, or a version with no notes: 2 points
When it wilts
Thirty quiet days and the leaves start to droop. Ninety and the plant withers, though it comes back the moment you ship again. Only if the site itself stays offline for several days in a row is the plant composted, and one successful check brings it back.
Lifetime points decide the plant’s size. Recent points decide its colour. A big old tree can wilt; a two-week-old sprout can be the greenest thing in the bed.
Eight kinds of plant
Makers choose what their product grows into. Until they do, it follows the product’s category. The kind is only a look: every plant grows, wilts and fruits by the same rules.
- OakA round, lumpy canopy on a sturdy trunk
- PineStacked tiers of dark needles
- CherryWide branches, pink blossom when flourishing
- BirchA slim white trunk and light, airy leaves
- CactusA ribbed column that grows arms, flowers on top
- BambooA clump of segmented stalks with leaf sprays
- PalmA curved trunk and a crown of fronds
- WillowA dome with long hanging strands
What can’t move a plant
Upvotes, payments and “boosts” don’t exist here. Watching a plant is a bookmark for you and does nothing to its score. Paid plans, if they ever exist, will buy features or faster review, never rank.