Problem (Pain Level: 7/10)
“7 out of 10 PRs I get these days are AI-generated garbage” - The new pain for open-source maintainers.
Current pain points:
- AI Spam Flood: Low-quality PRs mass-generated by LLMs flooding open source projects
- Time Waste: Maintainers missing real contributions while reviewing spam PRs
- Tool Installation Resistance: Security concerns about GitHub App permission requests
- Complex Setup: Most code review tools require excessive configuration
- New Contributor Identification: Hard to distinguish real beginners from AI spam accounts
Target Market
Primary Target: Open source project maintainers, enterprise GitHub administrators
Market Size:
- Code review automation market: $4B (2026)
- GitHub public repositories: 100M+
- Active open source projects: Millions
- 35% of enterprises investing in AI-based dev tools
Pain Intensity: Spam PRs surging as AI coding tools proliferate
What is Slop Score?
A dead-simple AI PR spam detection service that works by just adding a badge to your README.
Core Concept:
<!-- Add one line to README.md -->
<!-- Done! No installation, no permissions, no cost -->
How It Works:
- Analyze PR author’s profile (account age, followers, activity patterns)
- Review contribution history (PR acceptance rate, contribution types)
- Calculate heuristic-based reputation score
- Show detailed analysis page on badge click
Differentiators:
- Zero Installation: Just add badge URL, no GitHub App needed
- Zero Permissions: Uses only public APIs, no code access
- Built-in Virality: Other projects naturally adopt after seeing the badge
- Serverless: Near-zero cost with Cloudflare Workers
- Transparency: Scoring logic is open source
Competitive Analysis
| Competitor | Strength | Weakness |
|---|---|---|
| CodeRabbit | AI code review | $15/mo, requires app install |
| PR Slop Stopper | Heuristic spam detection | Requires GitHub App install |
| SonarQube | Code quality analysis | Complex setup, no spam focus |
| Codacy | Security/quality scanning | Not specialized for spam PRs |
Opportunity: No badge-only spam detection without installation
Competition Level: LOW - Novel approach
MVP Development
Timeline: 2 weeks
Tech Stack:
- Runtime: Cloudflare Workers (serverless)
- Language: TypeScript
- API: GitHub REST API (no auth required)
- Caching: Cloudflare KV
- Frontend: Static site (detail pages)
MVP Features:
- Dynamic badge image generation (SVG)
- GitHub profile/activity analysis
- Heuristic score calculation
- Detailed analysis page
- Result caching (24 hours)
Future Features:
- Project-specific whitelist
- Slack/Discord notifications
- History dashboard
- Team management
Revenue Model
Model: Freemium
Pricing:
- Free: Unlimited public repos, basic badge
- Pro ($5/mo): Detailed analysis reports, private repos, whitelist
- Team ($19/mo): Organization dashboard, Slack integration, API access
Revenue Projections:
- 6 months: $1K-5K MRR (with viral spread)
- 12 months: $5K-15K MRR (assuming 5% Pro conversion rate)
Risk Analysis
| Risk | Level | Mitigation |
|---|---|---|
| Technical | LOW | Public API only, low complexity |
| Market | LOW | Free entry enables fast adoption |
| Execution | LOW | 2-week MVP for quick validation |
Key Risk: GitHub API rate limits (mitigated by caching)
Recommended For
- Those with open source project maintainer experience
- Those familiar with edge computing (Cloudflare Workers)
- Those interested in viral growth
- Those with a minimalist product philosophy
- Those who understand the GitHub ecosystem well
If you’re starting a side project with this idea or have other thoughts, please share in the comments!