Innovation Trigger
A breakthrough or launch starts attention, while demonstrated use is still limited.
HOW TO READ ARGUS
The hype cycle,
without the mystery.
ARGUS borrows the familiar five-stage lifecycle shape, then produces its own transparent estimate from attributable public metadata. It is not a Gartner product or Gartner research.
THE CONCEPT
What the five phases mean
Peak of Inflated Expectations
Claims and excitement rise faster than repeatable evidence of value.
Trough of Disillusionment
Limitations, failures, or weak returns challenge the early narrative.
Slope of Enlightenment
Teams learn where the technology works and develop repeatable practices.
Plateau of Productivity
Benefits, operating knowledge, and adoption become sustained and less hype-dependent.
For Gartner's own proprietary methodology and definitions, see the official Gartner Hype Cycle methodology ↗.
THE ARGUS MODEL
Questions about the estimate
How does ARGUS choose a phase?
It scores six dimensions—attention, expectations, disappointment, adoption, maturity, and momentum—from weighted public evidence. A deterministic, versioned scoring model compares all five phases and publishes the best-supported phase, confidence, and underlying evidence. Internet sentiment alone does not choose the result.
What does “Updated weekly” mean?
Active technologies are eligible for a new collection and estimate once each week. A technology that remains on the Plateau of Productivity for 12 consecutive weekly snapshots moves to quarterly checks. The label describes publication cadence; it is not a live-data indicator.
What sources does ARGUS use?
The current collector uses Google News RSS metadata, Hacker News discussion, and public GitHub repository activity. Source classes receive different weights based on what they can credibly demonstrate. Article bodies and private usage data are not collected.
Does an LLM decide the lifecycle phase?
No. Collection classification and phase inference are deterministic and inspectable. OpenRouter is used only for the separate weekly discovery service and to prepare editable draft fields for an administrator; it cannot add a public technology or assign its phase.
How is historical data created?
ARGUS reconstructs a 52-week signal from dated GitHub activity and Hacker News discussion, then supplements current estimates with recent news metadata. Historical estimates are best treated as a consistent backcast, not as archived contemporaneous research.
Can a technology move backward?
Yes. The phase is re-estimated from the current evidence mix, so stronger disappointment, weaker momentum, or revised coverage can move a technology backward. Week-over-week and month-over-month indicators make those revisions visible.
TERMS & LIMITS
What the numbers do—and do not—mean
What is the hype gap?
Expectations minus verified adoption. A positive gap means public claims are running ahead of observed use. It is not a prediction that the technology will fail.
What is maturity?
Evidence of repeatability, maintenance, stable interfaces, governance, security practices, integrations, and production operating knowledge. It is distinct from popularity.
What is confidence?
A bounded indication of source coverage and how clearly one phase outranks competing phases. It is not a statistical probability or a guarantee that the classification is correct.
What is source coverage?
How completely configured sources were collected for that estimate. It is not the percentage of the internet ARGUS observed.
Is repository activity proof of adoption?
No. It is a conservative proxy for ecosystem activity and is capped in the adoption score. Production deployments, revenue, and organization-level usage are generally not visible in public metadata.
Is this an official Gartner Hype Cycle?
No. ARGUS is independent, is not affiliated with or endorsed by Gartner, and does not reproduce Gartner analyst research. Its placement is an explainable public-data estimate intended for exploration, not investment or procurement advice.