Project people map

Skill philpalmieri/engineering-manager-skills/skills/metrics/project-people-map

Install

npx -y skills add philpalmieri/engineering-manager-skills --skill project-people-map

Assembled from the repository path, not quoted from the project. Check it against their README if it does not work.

One thing to look at

1 stars1 stars. Stars are a popularity signal and not a quality one, but at this level it is likely that nobody has read this closely except its author, and you would be relying on your own review.

What its author says it does

Copied from the file, not written here

Map which people are active in which projects/repos to detect silos, measure bus factor, and visualize team engagement distribution. Shows project-level activity concentration and surfaces where only one person works. Use when asked about silos, bus factor, project coverage, or team distribution.

The file declares its own license as MIT. That is the author’s claim about this one file, and it is not the same thing as the license GitHub reports for the repository, which is listed with the other numbers below.

SKILL.md

4.6 KB, as published. Nobody here has run it

Project-People Activity Map

Visualize the relationship between projects (repos/initiatives) and people to surface silos, single points of failure, and healthy cross-pollination.

When to Trigger

"project map", "who works on what", "team distribution"
"bus factor", "silos", "single point of failure"
"project coverage", "initiative engagement"
As part of a team health report

Data Sources

data/YYYY-MM/{login}-prs.json — repos where PRs were authored
data/YYYY-MM/{login}-reviews.json — repos where reviews were given
data/YYYY-MM/{login}-issues.json — repos where issues were touched
team.json — team roster, optionally snippet.key_projects for grouping

Process

Step 1: Build the activity matrix

For each team member over the requested period, aggregate activity by repo:

PRs authored (weight: 3)
Reviews given (weight: 1)
Issues touched (weight: 1)

Produce a weighted "engagement score" per person per repo.

Step 2: Group by project/initiative (optional)

If team.json has snippet.key_projects with keyword mappings, group related repos under initiative names. Otherwise, show raw repos.

Example grouping:

Initiative: "Auth Overhaul"
  Keywords: ["auth", "oauth", "sso"]
  Matched repos: auth-service, oauth-proxy, sso-gateway
  Combined engagement per person

Step 3: Calculate bus factor

For each project/repo:

Bus factor = number of people with meaningful engagement (score > threshold)
Threshold = at least 2 authored PRs OR 5 reviews in the period
Risk level:
- 🔴 Bus factor 1 (single point of failure)
- 🟡 Bus factor 2 (fragile)
- 🟢 Bus factor 3+ (healthy)

Step 4: Detect silos

A silo exists when:

A person works exclusively in 1-2 repos with no overlap with teammates
A repo has > 80% of activity from a single person
Cross-review between repos is minimal (people only review within their "zone")

Score each person's breadth (distinct repos) and isolation (% of activity in their top repo).

Step 5: Engagement heatmap

Produce an ASCII heatmap:

                     | alice | bob | carol | dave | Bus |
  auth-service       |  ███  |  ·  |  ██   |  ·   | 🟡 2 |
  api-gateway        |  ██   | ███ |  █    |  ██  | 🟢 4 |
  data-pipeline      |  ·    |  ·  |  ·    | ███  | 🔴 1 |
  shared-utils       |  █    |  █  |  ██   |  █   | 🟢 4 |
  deploy-infra       |  ·    | ██  |  ·    |  ·   | 🔴 1 |

Block intensity:

███ = primary contributor (highest score)
██ = active contributor
█ = light contributor/reviewer
· = no activity

Step 6: Time-series comparison

If historical data is available, compare:

Projects that gained new contributors (silo breaking)
Projects that lost contributors (risk increasing)
People who expanded scope (growth signal)
People who narrowed scope (may be intentional or concerning)

Output Format

# Project-People Map: {period}

## Team Health Summary
| Metric | Value |
|--------|-------|
| Active projects | 12 |
| Bus factor = 1 (🔴) | 3 repos |
| Bus factor = 2 (🟡) | 4 repos |
| Bus factor ≥ 3 (🟢) | 5 repos |
| Avg person breadth | 6.2 repos |

## Engagement Heatmap
[heatmap table]

## 🔴 Single Points of Failure
| Repo | Owner | Activity % | Risk |
|------|-------|-----------|------|
| data-pipeline | dave | 94% | No backup |
| deploy-infra | bob | 87% | No backup |

## Silo Detection
| Person | Top Repo | % in Top | Breadth | Signal |
|--------|----------|----------|---------|--------|
| dave   | data-pipeline | 72% | 2 repos | 🔴 Siloed |
| alice  | auth-service | 45% | 6 repos | 🟢 Distributed |

## Changes vs Last Period
- 🟢 carol started reviewing in data-pipeline (was bus factor 1, now 2)
- 🔴 alice stopped touching deploy-infra (was bus factor 2, now 1)
- 🟢 dave expanded to shared-utils (breadth: 2 → 3)

## Recommendations
- [Actionable suggestions based on findings]

Notes

Filter out repos with < 2 total activities (noise reduction)
When grouping by initiative, show both grouped and ungrouped views
Bus factor calculation excludes "reviewer only" activity (must have authored at least 1 PR or issue)
Consider tenure: new team members naturally have narrower scope initially