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Developer signals (2026): the tools and free APIs for finding who uses your dev tool

Developer signals are the traces engineers leave when they evaluate a dev tool: starring or forking your repo, opening an issue, importing your SDK in their own code, pulling your package or Docker image, and reading your docs. For a dev-tool company these are the earliest buying signals you get, often months before anyone fills in a form.

The catch is identity. A GitHub login or a package download is not a person with a title and an employer. Below is what OneGTM uses to turn developer activity into contactable people, the free APIs that hold most of the raw data, and the paid platforms that do the identity work for you, with what each vendor publishes about price.

By Garrett Wolfe, founder of OneGTM (Clay Artisan Solutions Partner) and former GTM engineer at Unify. Updated .

Key takeaways

  • Most raw developer activity is free: the GitHub API, npm download counts, and PyPI stats cost nothing.
  • The expensive part is identity. Resolving a GitHub login or a download to a company and a person is what Reo.dev, Common Room, and Scarf charge for.
  • Someone importing your SDK or API key name in their own repo is a much stronger signal than a star.
  • Use the LinkedIn URL a developer declares on GitHub first. Search-based matching guessed wrong 5 times in 19 in one of our tests.
  • Qualification never comes from GitHub. Title and employer come from LinkedIn data.

What OneGTM uses for developer signals

We pull who starred, forked, opened issues on, or imported a client's repos from the free GitHub API, then resolve each login to a person. The order matters: check the existing TAM first, then the LinkedIn URL the developer declared on GitHub, and only then a search guess, which we mark as fuzzy. Title and employer come from a LinkedIn profile scrape, never from the GitHub bio.

Deepline

OneGTM uses this

GTM data platform with developer signal recipes that collect repository and package activity, resolve developers to people and companies, and score accounts, all as scheduled plays you own as code.

Best for: Running developer signal plays next to enrichment and sequencing

Pricing: Pay as you go at $0.10 per credit with no platform fee.

Apify

OneGTM uses this

Scraping platform. We use its LinkedIn profile actors to get title, employer, and tenure for developers once we have a LinkedIn URL. The store also has GitHub repo and profile scrapers, though in our test the stargazer actors could not return stargazer lists.

Best for: Qualifying resolved developers with LinkedIn data

Pricing: Free plan with $5 of usage a month; Starter $19/month, Scale $199/month, Business $999/month, each including the same amount in usage. Lower when billed annually.

Serper

OneGTM uses this

Google search API. When a developer has not declared a LinkedIn URL, we search name plus company to find a candidate profile, and flag the match as fuzzy until something confirms it.

Best for: Cheap fallback matching from GitHub name to LinkedIn

Pricing: 2,500 free queries. Credit packs from $50 for 50,000 queries ($1.00 per 1,000) down to $0.30 per 1,000 at the largest pack. Credits last 6 months.

Free sources of raw developer activity

These give you the activity for nothing. None of them tell you who the developer works for.

GitHub API

Org events return recent stars, issues, and pull requests with dates; GraphQL returns forks and watchers; code search finds public repos that import your SDK; and a user's social accounts endpoint returns the LinkedIn URL they chose to list.

Best for: Stars, forks, issues, and code imports on your own repos

Pricing: Free. 60 requests an hour unauthenticated and 5,000 an hour with a personal access token.

npm download counts

Public API for daily and period download totals per package, back to January 2015, with bulk queries of up to 128 packages. Counts are aggregate, so they show traction, not who downloaded.

Best for: Tracking adoption of your package against competitors

Pricing: Public API with no published fee or key.

PyPI Stats

Recent and daily PyPI download counts per package, split by Python version and OS, kept for 180 days. For longer history it points to the public PyPI download tables in BigQuery.

Best for: Python package traction over time

Pricing: No price listed; rate-limited by IP. BigQuery queries bill at Google's rates.

LFX Insights

Linux Foundation site that scores the health of more than 13,000 open source projects on contributor, security, and activity metrics. Useful context on the ecosystems your buyers depend on.

Best for: Sizing open source ecosystems around your category

Pricing: Free.

Platforms that identify the company behind developer activity

These do the identity resolution that the free sources leave to you, and that is what you pay for.

Reo.dev

Developer intent platform that tracks GitHub interactions, Docker pulls, npm and Python installs, docs engagement, open source telemetry, website visits, and community activity across 50+ sources, then ties them to accounts.

Best for: Dev-tool companies that want developer intent in one product

Pricing: Custom pricing; book a demo.

Common Room

Signal platform that combines community, open source, product, website, and social activity, resolves it to people and accounts, and routes it to reps.

Best for: Companies with an active community plus a product-led motion

Pricing: Essential $2,500/month billed annually. Advanced and Enterprise custom.

Scarf

Tracks package downloads, container pulls, docs pixels, and telemetry for open source projects, and identifies the companies behind them. Download traffic is not charged; you pay to reveal a company's details.

Best for: Open source maintainers who want to know which companies use their package

Pricing: Starter $0 with credits as you go (3 company reveals a month). Basic $1,250/month and Premium $5,000/month, both annual. Extra company reveals from $3.00 each, falling with volume.

Octolens

Monitors GitHub, Hacker News, Reddit, Stack Overflow, DEV, X, LinkedIn, and more for mentions of your brand, competitors, and keywords, with AI filtering of the noise.

Best for: Catching developers asking for a tool like yours

Pricing: Pro $159/month and Scale $499/month billed annually. Enterprise custom.

Prices are from each vendor's site as of October 2026 and change often, so check before you buy. This is an opinionated list, not a paid ranking. Some links are referral links that may earn us a credit; that never changes what you pay or who makes the list.

Developer signal tools compared

ToolBest forStarting price
Deepline (OneGTM uses)Running developer signal plays next to enrichment and sequencing$0.10/credit, no platform fee
Apify (OneGTM uses)Qualifying resolved developers with LinkedIn dataFree; Starter $19/month
Serper (OneGTM uses)Cheap fallback matching from GitHub name to LinkedIn2,500 free; $1.00 per 1,000
GitHub APIStars, forks, issues, and code imports on your own reposFree
npm download countsTracking adoption of your package against competitorsFree public API
PyPI StatsPython package traction over timeNo charge listed
LFX InsightsSizing open source ecosystems around your categoryFree
Reo.devDev-tool companies that want developer intent in one productCustom pricing
Common RoomCompanies with an active community plus a product-led motionEssential $2,500/month billed annually
ScarfOpen source maintainers who want to know which companies use their packageFree; Basic $1,250/month annual
OctolensCatching developers asking for a tool like yoursPro $159/month billed annually

Starting prices as published by each vendor in October 2026.

What developer signals tell a seller

Not every developer action means the same thing. A star is a bookmark. A fork of a client SDK usually means someone is integrating. Your API key variable or import statement in someone else's repo means they already did. Rank the signals by how much work the developer put in.

Package downloads are a different kind of signal. They are aggregate counts, so they tell you whether adoption is growing and how you compare with a competitor, but not who downloaded. Use them to size and prioritize, and use repo activity to find people.

  • Strongest: your SDK import or API key name in their own repo.
  • Strong: a fork, a pull request, or a detailed issue from someone outside your team.
  • Medium: a recent star or watch from someone at a target account.
  • Context: package download trends and mentions in community threads.

What we learned building a GitHub signal lane

We built a lane that watches who touches a client's own repos and turns them into contacts. A few results from testing it live:

  • Stargazer lists were not reachable through the REST, GraphQL, or HTML routes in our test, and two Apify stargazer actors failed too. Recent stars still arrive through org events, about 90 days back.
  • Commit emails are almost all GitHub's noreply proxy, and any real one is usually personal. Do not plan on email from commits.
  • The LinkedIn URL a developer declares on GitHub is exact. A search-based guess was wrong 5 times in 19 even after a surname check.
  • Searching public code for companies that import competing open source libraries produced accounts that reached our top tier at 1.57%, against a 4% bar. We parked it. Activity on your own repos beat inferred technographics.

How to use developer signals in outbound

The play: every week, pull new forks, issues, pull requests, and code imports on your public repos. Resolve each login to a LinkedIn URL, cheapest and most certain source first, then pull title and employer. Keep the developer as the champion and find the engineering manager or head of platform at the same company as the buyer.

Write to the developer about the work, not the sale. "Saw you forked the Python SDK last week. If the batch endpoint is what you were after, here is the example we wish we had shipped with it" earns a reply. Then go to the manager with the account-level story: several engineers on their team are already building on you, and here is what the paid plan adds for them. Route anything at an existing customer to the account owner instead.

  • Pull activity weekly and dedupe against people already in a sequence.
  • Resolve identity in order: your own TAM, self-declared LinkedIn, then search marked fuzzy.
  • Qualify on LinkedIn title and employer, never on the GitHub bio.
  • Send the developer something useful; send the manager the account view.
  • Track reply and meeting rate by signal type and cut the weak ones.

When to get help with developer signals

The data is mostly free. Turning logins into the right people at the right companies without emailing strangers is the hard part, and it is where most homegrown GitHub scrapers stall.

OneGTM builds the developer signal pipeline on your repos and packages, resolves identity with an audit trail, and wires the result into your CRM and sequences. You own the code and the data.

  • Your repo has thousands of stars and sales has no idea who is behind them.
  • You are weighing Reo.dev or Common Room against building on the GitHub API.
  • Your GitHub-to-LinkedIn matching is sending email to the wrong people.
  • You want developer activity to start a sequence for the engineering manager automatically.

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Developer signals FAQ

What are developer signals?
Developer signals are actions engineers take while evaluating a dev tool: starring, forking, or opening issues on its repo, importing its SDK, downloading its package, and reading its docs. Reo.dev, Common Room, and Scarf tie these to companies, and the GitHub API and npm download counts give you the raw activity for free.
What are the best developer signal tools?
Reo.dev is built specifically for developer intent across GitHub, package installs, and docs. Common Room adds community and product signals, Scarf focuses on open source package downloads, and Octolens monitors developer communities for mentions. OneGTM builds on the free GitHub API with Deepline, Apify, and Serper for identity.
Can I see who starred my GitHub repo?
Partly. GitHub org events return recent stars with dates, about 90 days back, and the GitHub API is free. In our testing the full stargazer list was not reachable through the API, and a star alone is a weak signal compared with a fork or a code import.
How do I find the company behind a GitHub user?
Check whether the person is already in your contact data, then read the LinkedIn URL they declared on GitHub through the social accounts endpoint, which is exact. Fall back to a search such as Serper for name plus company, mark it as unconfirmed, and pull title and employer from LinkedIn.
Can I see which companies download my npm or PyPI package?
Not from npm or PyPI, which only publish aggregate download counts. Scarf and Reo.dev identify the companies behind package downloads, container pulls, and docs visits, which is the main thing they charge for.
How much do developer signal tools cost?
The GitHub API, npm download counts, and LFX Insights are free. Octolens starts at $159 a month billed annually, Scarf Basic is $1,250 a month on an annual plan, and Common Room Essential is $2,500 a month billed annually. Reo.dev uses custom pricing.

Lots of GitHub activity and no idea who is behind it?

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