The evidence-led reference for GitHub profile achievements.
Official documentation, reproducible behaviour, historical records, account observations, contradictions, and uncertainty—kept separate and reviewable.
Explore the encyclopedia · Search · Evidence · Research campaign · Static API · Health
| Measure | Current state |
|---|---|
| Formal release baseline | v1.4.0 |
| Active research campaign | v1.5.0 |
| Canonical achievement guides | 9 |
| Active achievements | 7 |
| Retired achievements | 2 |
| Public API endpoints | 16 |
| Unified audit controls | 17 |
| Repository health | 100/100 — Excellent |
| Tracked Markdown files | 220 |
| External source URLs | 88 |
The formal v1.4.0 release remains the immutable published evidence-quality baseline. Development on main is now running the v1.5.0 research campaign, which classifies remaining work as active, blocked, monitored, queued, or complete instead of treating every unresolved question as equivalent.
GitHub does not publish complete rules for every profile achievement or tier. Public discussion therefore mixes several fundamentally different forms of information:
- official GitHub documentation;
- behaviour reproduced under controlled conditions;
- credible but incomplete observations;
- historical screenshots and archived material;
- community-reported thresholds;
- assumptions repeated until they appear authoritative.
The GitHub Achievement Encyclopedia prevents those categories from collapsing into one another.
| Evidence-led | Research-ready | Machine-readable |
|---|---|---|
| Material claims are classified, dated, and connected to reviewable evidence records. | Uncertainty becomes a bounded task with an explicit question, method, privacy boundary, and acceptance criteria. | Validated JSON endpoints preserve evidence levels, dates, limitations, decisions, and unresolved state. |
| Confidence model | Research hub | API reference |
Important
Numerical thresholds and trigger details are never promoted merely because they are popular. Claims remain community-reported, observed, or unknown until the available evidence supports a stronger classification.
| Achievement | What it recognises | Tiered | Guide |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pull Shark | Having pull requests merged | Yes | Open guide |
| Quickdraw | Closing an issue or pull request shortly after opening it | No | Open guide |
| YOLO | Merging a pull request without review | No | Open guide |
| Pair Extraordinaire | Co-authoring commits in merged pull requests | Yes | Open guide |
| Galaxy Brain | Receiving accepted answers in GitHub Discussions | Yes | Open guide |
| Starstruck | Owning a repository that receives stars | Yes | Open guide |
| Public Sponsor | Publicly sponsoring open-source work through GitHub Sponsors | No | Open guide |
| Achievement | Historical trigger | Guide |
|---|---|---|
| Arctic Code Vault Contributor | Contribution to qualifying repositories archived in 2020 | Open guide |
| Mars 2020 Contributor | Contribution to repositories used by the Mars 2020 mission | Open guide |
Retired achievements remain documented as history and are not presented as currently earnable.
flowchart LR
Claim[Achievement claim] --> Classify[Evidence classification]
Official[Official GitHub material] --> Monitor[Documentation fingerprint monitor]
Monitor --> Classify
Classify --> Record[Privacy-safe evidence record]
Record --> Guide[Guide interpretation]
Guide --> Timeline[Verification timeline]
Guide --> Gap{Evidence gap?}
Gap -->|Yes| Task[Bounded research task]
Gap -->|No| Conclusion[Maintained conclusion]
Task --> Record
Timeline --> Audit[17-control repository audit]
Conclusion --> Audit
Audit --> Publish[Pages site + static API]
| Evidence level | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Official | Directly documented by GitHub |
| Confirmed | Reproduced with sufficient dated evidence |
| Observed | Supported by credible observations without full reproduction |
| Community-reported | Third-party reporting without adequate independent confirmation |
| Unknown | Insufficient evidence for a reliable conclusion |
The live campaign currently contains:
| State | Count | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Active | 3 | Work currently being pursued |
| Blocked | 1 | Valuable work without the required safe evidence conditions |
| Monitoring | 1 | Edge cases tracked through legitimate public history |
| Queued | 2 | Defined work ready for future research |
| Good first research tasks | 1 | Beginner-accessible, privacy-safe contribution route |
- Independently reproduce the remaining YOLO review-state boundary.
- Reproduce Pair Extraordinaire merge-attribution behaviour across legitimate merge histories.
- Collect privacy-safe observations of achievement-processing delay.
- Pair Extraordinaire tier thresholds remain blocked until exact qualifying counts can be observed without manufacturing meaningless pull requests.
- Starstruck ownership, transfer, archive, deletion, restoration, and revocation behaviour remains under observation.
- Galaxy Brain and Public Sponsor edge-case work is queued with explicit privacy and reproducibility requirements.
Open the Contributor Research Hub for exact task IDs, methods, acceptance criteria, and current state.
| Surface | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Evidence register | Privacy-safe canonical evidence records |
| Evidence policy | Provenance, publication, privacy, contradiction, and review rules |
| Official-document monitor | Fingerprints for tracked GitHub documentation |
| Verification timelines | Dated review histories and historical gaps |
| Research hub | Campaign-classified contribution tasks |
| Research issue form | Structured reproduction results and limitations |
| Health dashboard | Generated operational posture |
The repository publishes machine-readable data for:
- discovery and schema metadata;
- the complete achievement catalogue;
- one endpoint per achievement;
- public evidence records;
- verification timelines;
- the research queue; and
- repository health.
Start with api/index.json or the API reference.
Note
Structured delivery does not strengthen a claim. API consumers should preserve evidence level, reviewer decision, reproduction state, dates, precision, limitations, and task status.
The unified audit protects:
- Markdown and front-matter integrity;
- catalogue, tier, route, and metadata contracts;
- evidence and timeline alignment;
- official-document fingerprint baselines;
- research-task references and campaign state;
- source resilience and external-link inventory;
- generated API drift;
- search, Jekyll, and visual output;
- release and maintenance policy;
- privacy and prohibited-engagement rules.
Run it locally:
python scripts/repository_audit.py- Evidence before certainty. Popularity is not verification.
- No artificial engagement. No spam, fake contributions, manufactured stars, deceptive co-authorship, or meaningless pull requests.
- Dates matter. Evidence age and review history remain visible.
- Corrections remain traceable. Superseded conclusions are amended through reviewable history.
- Historical context is preserved. Retired achievements are documented without being advertised as active.
- Structured data retains uncertainty. JSON does not upgrade evidence.
- Privacy is non-negotiable. Credentials, private repository data, billing material, and unnecessary personal identifiers are excluded.
Corrections, dated observations, independent reproductions, contradictory evidence, source replacements, accessibility work, and data-contract improvements are welcome.
Start with the research hub, then use the structured research form or read CONTRIBUTING.md.
A useful contribution does not need to prove a claim. A well-documented failed reproduction can materially improve the reference.
Accuracy over folklore. Evidence over assumption. History without ambiguity.
Live encyclopedia · Search · Research · API · Health · MIT Licence
Maintained by Conroy1988 for the GitHub community.