How to build an open source metrics dashboard

The World Health Organization (WHO) became the first United Nations agency to establish an Open Source Programme Office (OSPO), collaborating with GitHub to enhance its open source ecosystem. This initiative led to the creation of a metrics dashboard to assess the health and sustainability of WHO's open source projects, utilizing metrics from the CHAOSS project by the Linux Foundation. The dashboard development faced challenges like data expense, storage, rate limits, and maintainability but benefited from strategies such as pair programming, GitHub Issues, and monthly syncs with WHO. The project highlighted best practices for open source development, including building openly, configuring for broad use, and maintaining strong community branding. The dashboard's architecture involved a Typescript Backend and a NextJS/React frontend, leveraging GitHub Actions for data processing and fast loading. As a result, WHO can better manage its open source projects, and GitHub identified future improvements, such as adding database support and UI iteration. The project demonstrates the potential for contributing to global impact through open source, encouraging others to engage in similar initiatives.