What this section is for
Knowledge Map shows who made most of the synced commits. The bus factor helps you spot when a small number of people make most changes. It describes participation in code changes; it does not test developer knowledge.
When to use
- Before holiday season, or when someone hands over a service.
- When a new engineer joins and you need to decide what they should touch first.
- When you want to check whether one developer makes most of the changes.
Quick start
- 1Open the map and check the bus factor and its risk category: critical, high, medium or low.
- 2Check how commits are distributed across the team.
- 3Find the developers with the largest share in the contributors table.
- 4Ask the team who else knows this code before planning a task or knowledge handover.
Usage example
Scenario: The team has a bus factor of 1 and one contributor accounts for most synced commits.
- 1Open Knowledge Map and find the contributor with the largest share of commits.
- 2Ask which repositories they work on and who else can maintain them.
- 3If a handover is needed, agree on a joint review or a service guide. After later syncs, check whether other contributors are making changes.
What this shows: The team has identified who needs help learning the code and agreed on a practical handover step.
FAQ
Does a high bus factor mean everything is fine?
A high bus factor means commits are spread across several authors. It does not confirm that they know the system: frequent small edits are different from maintenance experience. Ask who can investigate failures and make architectural changes.
Why is a former developer still in the list?
The map uses the full synced commit history for the team’s active repositories. A former contributor can therefore remain visible even when they no longer add new commits.
Tips
- Before time off, check who can maintain the relevant services. Use the map to start that check.
- Do not make staffing decisions from commit counts. Consider the person’s tasks, help given to colleagues and maintenance experience.