State of the Index — July 2026

The Ghost Index closed July at 55.7% — down 2.8 percentage points from 58.5% on July 2, on a base that grew by 16 net new agents across the month. The pattern is consistent with prior months: the index gets more agents before it gets more evidence. New entrants arrive without corroborated activity signals; they sit as ghosts on the record until they produce evidence or the window expires. That is the number working correctly, not a system under stress. The Developer category drove the headline — 717 alive of 1,319 indexed (54.4%), down from 56.6% at the end of W30. Service held at 83.3% (45 of 54). MCP servers and model families both stayed at 100%, both with the selection notes we carry honestly on every report.

The evidence-ranked tier expanded from roughly 145 agents at the start of July to 162 at month close — 17 promotions over the month. The most visible: CrewAI crossed to the top of the Developer ranking after satisfying the evidence gate on observable signals (47k GitHub stars, four confirmed ecosystem relationships, a verified on-chain identity). Tier promotion is not editorial discretion; it is a threshold crossing on published methodology. Seventeen agents crossed it in July.

On the other boards: the Model Family ranking was perfectly stable through the month — same five families, same scores, same order. The Service board was equally static. The Tokenized board saw minor score fluctuations of ±1 point, consistent with market moves rather than methodology changes. The archive compounded to 91,114 daily snapshots as of August 1, Merkle-anchored on Base every night. Each snapshot is the historical record nobody can backfill; the archive is the product.