Emerging Launch Radar: GitHub Trending + Hacker News Momentum

Spot new open source projects, developer tools and startup launches while they are taking off. This Actor combines GitHub Trending (repositories gaining stars fastest) with Hacker News momentum (Show HN, Launch HN and stories linking to GitHub) into one ranked list, with a momentum score for every launch.

No API key, no GitHub token and no login needed.

What does this do?

New projects usually break out on GitHub Trending, on Hacker News, or on both. Checking both every day by hand is slow, and it is easy to miss the ones that matter. This Actor reads both, joins posts to the repositories they link to, and ranks everything by momentum.

flowchart LR
    A[GitHub Trending<br/>stars gained] --> C[Joined by repo<br/>and homepage]
    B[Hacker News<br/>Show HN, Launch HN,<br/>GitHub links] --> C
    C --> D[Ranked launches<br/>with momentum score]

Who is it for?

You are	You use it to
Venture capital and angel investors	Find breakout open source projects and technical founders early
Developer relations and dev tool marketers	Track competitors and new tools in your space every week
Tech journalists and newsletter writers	Fill "what launched this week" roundups with real traction numbers
Engineers and CTOs	Discover useful new libraries in your language before everyone else
Recruiters	Find developers behind fast-growing projects

What data do you get?

One row per launch:

Field	Meaning
rank, name, launchUrl, description	The launch and where to find it
momentumScore	Combined traction score (see below)
signals, onBothPlatforms	Where it is trending: GitHub Trending, Show HN, Launch HN, Hacker News
githubStarsGained, githubStarsPerDay, githubStars, githubForks	GitHub traction
language, githubTrendingRank, githubTrendingPage	Language and position on the trending list
repoCreatedAt, repoHomepage, repoTopics, repoLicense	Repository details, when available
hackerNewsPoints, hackerNewsComments, hackerNewsPosts	Hacker News traction across all posts about the launch
hackerNewsTopTitle, hackerNewsTopUrl, hackerNewsTopPostedAt	The biggest Hacker News post
hackerNewsPostList	Up to 10 posts with points, comments and links

How the momentum score works

momentumScore adds about 20 points for every tenfold increase in GitHub stars gained per day and in Hacker News points:

• 10 stars a day ≈ 20, 100 stars a day ≈ 40, 1,000 stars a day ≈ 60
• 10 Hacker News points ≈ 20, 100 points ≈ 40, 1,000 points ≈ 60

A project that is big on both platforms scores the highest. Launches on both are rare, so onBothPlatforms flags them.

Example: this month's launches on both platforms

Python, TypeScript, JavaScript, Rust and Go repositories trending on GitHub this month that also got real traction on Hacker News, from a run in September 2026:

Rank	Launch	Stars gained	Hacker News	Momentum
1	ayghri/i-have-adhd	+24,963	540 points, 372 comments	113.1
2	experientiallabs/experiential	+4,496	222 points, 47 comments	90.5
3	RyanCodrai/turbovec	+2,412	302 points, 33 comments	87.8

A normal weekly run returns about 100 launches: the top GitHub Trending repositories plus the strongest Show HN and GitHub-linked Hacker News posts.

Sample output (JSON)

{
  "rank": 1,
  "name": "i-have-adhd",
  "launchUrl": "https://github.com/ayghri/i-have-adhd",
  "description": "A skill to stop your coding agent from burying the answer. ADHD-friendly output.",
  "signals": ["GitHub Trending (this month)", "Hacker News"],
  "onBothPlatforms": true,
  "momentumScore": 113.1,
  "language": "Python",
  "githubStars": 46164,
  "githubStarsGained": 24963,
  "githubStarsPerDay": 832.1,
  "githubTrendingRank": 2,
  "repoCreatedAt": "2026-05-13T20:42:06Z",
  "repoLicense": "MIT",
  "hackerNewsPoints": 540,
  "hackerNewsComments": 372,
  "hackerNewsTopTitle": "I-have-ADHD: A skill to stop coding agents from burying the answer",
  "hackerNewsTopUrl": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49610631"
}

How to use it

1. Choose a time window: today, this week or this month.
2. Optional: add GitHub languages (python, typescript, rust, go…) and keywords (ai, agent, database…).
3. Turn on Only launches on both platforms for the strongest signals only.
4. Click Start. Export to Excel, CSV or JSON, or send new launches to Slack or email with Apify integrations.

Tip: schedule a weekly run with your keywords and connect a Slack integration to get a launch digest every Monday.

Popular radars

Ready to run:

GitHub Trending

• GitHub Trending repositories today
• GitHub Trending repositories this week
• Trending Python repositories
• Trending TypeScript repositories
• Trending JavaScript repositories
• Trending Rust repositories
• Trending Go repositories

Hacker News

• Hacker News launches this week
• Top Hacker News launches this month

Cross-platform

• Trending AI projects this week
• Breakout projects on GitHub and Hacker News

Run it with the API

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/precious_bathmat~emerging-launch-radar/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "period": "weekly",
    "languages": ["python", "rust"],
    "keywords": ["ai", "agent"]
  }'

Pricing

$0.01 per launch returned.

Job	Launches	Cost
Launches on both platforms this month	usually under 10	under $0.10
Weekly radar, top 25	25	$0.25
Weekly radar, all sources	about 100	about $1.00

Use Max launches, Keywords or Only launches on both platforms to pay only for what you need.

FAQ

Where does the data come from? The public GitHub Trending pages and the public Hacker News search API from Algolia. Repository details come from the public GitHub API.

How are Hacker News posts matched to GitHub projects? By the link: a post that links to a GitHub repository, or to the website a repository lists as its homepage. Projects are never matched by name alone, because different projects often share a name.

Which Hacker News posts count as launches? Every Show HN and Launch HN post, plus stories that link to a GitHub repository's home page or a release. Stories linking to GitHub issues, pull requests or commits are left out, because they are usually news or arguments about an existing project rather than a launch.

Why are repository details sometimes empty? The GitHub API allows a limited number of anonymous requests per hour, so details are fetched for the top launches only, and skipped when the hourly limit is reached. Everything else in the row is still filled in.

Why do few launches appear on both platforms? Most projects trend on one platform only. When one does break out on both, it is usually a strong signal, which is why it gets the highest scores.

How far back does Hacker News go? 3 days for "today", 7 days for "this week" and 30 days for "this month", so posts have time to collect points.