Comment by simonw

7 hours ago

https://github.com/datasette has 119 - but there are also 232 under my simonw account from before I started the Datasette org: https://github.com/simonw?tab=repositories&q=Datasette-&type...

Most of them predate coding agents. I started the Datasette project in 2017.

In fact we can answer this with Datasette! Here's a query showing the 111 packages with at least one release prior to ChatGPT on Nov 30 2022: https://datasette.simonwillison.net/simonwillisonblog?sql=wi...

And this is that same query for Claude Code (Feb 24 2025) - which returns 172:

https://datasette.simonwillison.net/simonwillisonblog?sql=wi...

I'm at 205 today (some of the repos on GitHub aren't plugins, and some in the datasette org were written and released by Alex Garcia which excludes them from my own releases database).

Most of the plugins I wrote this year have been heavily AI-assisted, but that wasn't the case for the older ones. Here's my post from October 2025 when I first realized Claude Sonnet 4.5 could one-shot a plugin for me: https://simonwillison.net/2025/Oct/8/claude-datasette-plugin...

The reason there are so many repos is that Datasette uses a plugin architecture, which makes it much easier to try out different features without risk of corrupting the core project with things that turn out to be bad ideas.

I gave a talk about plugin architecture at DjangoCon a couple of years ago: https://2024.djangocon.us/talks/how-to-design-and-implement-...

Well, thank you for clarifying. The signal is getting lost in the noise. I assumed too soon after looking around just the datasette org github account and seeing so many repos and code being built so fast.