FAQs
      Back to home
      1. CodeScene Support Hub
      2. FAQs

      Active Authors FAQs

      You can find a list of your Active Authors under:

      CodeScene’s subscription model uses the number of active contributors as one of the main criteria. An active author is anyone who has committed code over the past three months to the codebase you want to analyze. This time period is a sliding window that always starts at the date of the most recent commit in your repositories. CodeScene applies the following additional rules.

      • Each author is only counted once. That is, if you analyze multiple codebases, the same persons only count once no matter how many projects they contribute to.
      • If an author has used more than one name when committing code, you can use author aliases. In these cases, only one active author will be counted even if there are multiple aliases.
      • Historic contributors are free. People who haven’t committed code within the last three months are included for free and don’t add to the license fee.
      • Marking an author who has contributed in the last three months as an ex-developer does not affect how they are counted.

      Here is an example that can help in understanding the concept of Active Authors:

      • 'Jane Doe' is marked as a former contributor.
      • The last contribution to the repository in general was on 15th June 2023. This information can be found on the project dashboard, under Scope -> Analysis Data -> Commits tab. If it's not sorted by date, so you get the last contribution at the top, please do it by clicking on the Date column.
      • The last contribution for 'Jane Doe' was on 15th June 2023 - 9 months ago. This information can be found on the project dashboard, under Team Dynamics -> Author Statistics.
      • Under the Active Authors, she's still here.
      The reason why it's expected to see her under the Active Authors is because the start date of the three-month window begins at the date of the latest commit made to the repository.  So for the example above it will be 15th March - 15th June 2023, no matter the fact that it was 9 months ago from this moment, and that's why she's still an active author. If no one has made changes to the repository over a specific period, it is possible that Jane Doe's commit still falls inside the three-month window.
      If a commit is made now to that repository, the timeframe would shift forward to the present and she would no longer be considered as Active Author.