Field note / 2026-09-11

A zero is evidence, not a verdict.

A useful bounty screen can end with no target. Its job is to make that narrow result legible, not to convert it into a story about the whole market.

On 11 September 2026, one public candidate inventory and its linked issue record did not clear the stated checks for recent completed payouts, open work, and low visible competition. The screen therefore produced zero safe contribution targets.

That is not a claim that no bounties exist. It says only that this dated set of public observations did not establish a target that passed every gate. A label, an old inventory row, and an open issue are different facts; none substitutes for current payment evidence.

The practical next step is not to relax the threshold. It is to refresh the sources before anyone invests implementation time. A small, repeatable rejection can be more useful than a long shortlist that asks a contributor to trust stale evidence.

Read the Bounty Scout evidence boundary →