Tracking dependencies
Our approach to tracking dependencies involves comprehensive analysis of each repository and contributor. This process includes downloading the relevant repository for a single-repository contact or all repositories for a contributor. We then scrutinize common configuration files for signs of your technology's usage and examine commit timestamps to distinguish between new and existing users based on when your technology was incorporated.
Specifying your dependency
Begin by specifying your dependency. This could be anything typically defined in a configuration file or a package.json-like file that lists such dependencies. Our tracking capabilities extend to blockchain networks as well, where we look through standard deployment files for evidence of use.
Identifying files holding the dependency
We automatically search the following files for dependencies:
- package.json
- .config
- .yaml
- .yml
- truffle
- .toml
- network
- hardhat
- deploy
- go.mod
- composer.json
Feel free to extend this list by appending additional file names, each separated by a comma. While we do not typically recommend scanning markdown files to identify technology usage due to methodological concerns, our experience and manual cross-referencing have shown that this approach generates very few false positives.
Naming Your Tracker
Assign a name to your tracker. This feature is important as we are planning to introduce the ability to run multiple trackers within a single campaign, allowing for direct comparison of different datasets. For instance, you might compare how many of your users are also familiar with tools from competitors.
Deep fingerprinting
We call our method of tracking dependencies "deep fingerprinting" because we clone all repositories of a user and analyze each of them for signs of your dependency being used.
Understanding dependency states
To understand each state of a contact read further here
