beehiivYou published 2.0 on Monday. It’s Thursday, and you still don’t know if anyone installed it.
npm knows. It counts every download. But the number sits on a page you have to remember to open, one package at a time.
What the board shows
Each package gets its own number. Weekly downloads, with a line under it that grows every time the board reads. Add your CLI, your SDK and the React wrapper side by side, scoped names like @acme/sdk included, and the one taking off is obvious at a glance.
Put a goal on the same number and a ring shows how close this week is to 25,000. Put your GitHub stars beside it and you can see whether people star the repo and then actually install it.
It works for any public package, not only yours. Keep the library you’re trying to replace on the board too, and watch the gap close.
Where the numbers come from
npm publishes download counts for every public package. The board asks for the last week of downloads on its own server, with no npm account and no key, and gets back the same seven-day total npm reports.
npm adds up downloads once a day, in a batch that runs shortly after midnight UTC. So the weekly number moves once a day, not every minute. The board picks up the new total the next time it reads while the board is open.
The line under each number starts the day you add the package. The board adds a point every time it reads, so it shows what happened since then and doesn’t invent the months before.
One board for the whole launch
Downloads are one signal. Hacker News, signups and revenue are the others, and they move together on launch day.
The Launch week template starts with a countdown, a goal, a checklist and the Show HN feed. Your packages slot in next to them, so the morning after launch the posts and the installs are on one screen.