DORA Metrics
Upshot automatically computes DORA metrics from your GitHub and CI/CD data — no manual tagging, no separate tooling.
What are DORA metrics?
The DORA (DevOps Research and Assessment) framework defines four key metrics that predict software delivery performance:
| Metric | What it measures | Elite benchmark |
|---|---|---|
| Deployment Frequency | How often you deploy to production | Multiple times per day |
| Lead Time for Changes | Time from first commit to production | Less than 1 hour |
| Change Failure Rate | % of deployments causing incidents | 0–15% |
| Mean Time to Recovery | How long to restore service after failure | Less than 1 hour |
How Upshot computes them
Deployment Frequency
Counted from GitHub deployments, releases, or merged PRs to your main branch (configurable). Upshot detects your deployment pattern automatically.
Lead Time for Changes
Measured from the first commit on a branch to the merge/deploy event. Upshot tracks the full lifecycle of each change set.
Change Failure Rate
Cross-references deployments with Sentry error spikes, rollback events, and hotfix PRs. If a deploy is followed by a significant error increase within a configurable window, it's counted as a failure.
Mean Time to Recovery (MTTR)
Measures time from failure detection (Sentry alert or incident issue) to resolution (fix deployed or error rate returns to baseline).
Performance scoring
Upshot categorizes your team using the standard DORA benchmarks:
Team health indicators
Beyond DORA, Upshot tracks additional health signals:
- Bus Factor — how many people have contributed to critical areas. Low bus factor = knowledge concentration risk.
- PR Size Distribution — tracks average PR size and flags outliers. Smaller PRs correlate with better review quality and lower failure rates.
- Contributor Balance — measures how evenly work is distributed across team members. Highlights overloaded or disengaged contributors.
- Review Turnaround — median time from PR opened to first review. Directly impacts lead time.
Dashboard
The DORA dashboard in Upshot shows trend lines over time, period-over-period comparisons, and per-team breakdowns. Filter by repository, team, or contributor to drill down.