Question 1

What do the heights and colours mean?

Accepted Answer

Height is lines of code on a log scale, so the skyline is the size distribution of the repository. Colour is the top level directory a file belongs to, and each of those becomes a district on its own plate. Footprint deliberately encodes the kind of file rather than its size, because size is already carried by height and spending two channels on one variable wastes one of them.

Question 2

Does Atlas work on private repositories?

Accepted Answer

No. Atlas reads public repositories only, and it holds no credentials that could reach a private one. Nothing is uploaded and nothing is stored: a map is built on request and rendered in your browser.

Question 3

How large a repository can it map?

Accepted Answer

A map draws at most 500 files. Larger repositories are not truncated arbitrarily; a prioritisation pass keeps entry points and the highest value source files and samples the rest across directories, so the shape of the project survives even when the file count does not.

Question 4

Is any of this generated by a language model?

Accepted Answer

No. The pipeline is four deterministic stages: read the repository, classify files and resolve imports, settle a force directed layout, then score centrality and pick landmarks. The same repository always produces the same city, which is what makes two maps worth comparing.

Question 5

Can I use a map in an article, a talk or a README?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Atlas is MIT licensed and every map exports to PNG at up to three times scale with a caption band naming the repository. Attribution is appreciated but not required.