🐙Session 7: GitHub Profile Customization

GitHub is one of the most popular places for developers to showcase their portfolio online. Did you know that you can make your profile unique by editing a special repository? Let's dive in!

How does it work?

Say your username is github-coder. If you create a new public repo with the same name as your username, e.g. https://github.com/github-coder/github-coder, this repo's README.md will be placed on your profile page at https://github.com/github-coder for everyone to see. The file uses Markdown, an open-source markup language that is popular with developers. A full guide is here:

That's great, but why does this matter?

GitHub is a place for storing code, but it's also a place to collaborate on projects, share your work, or even showcase your portfolio to land a new job. Let's take a look at some examples of unique GitHub profiles:

How do I get started?

I want to use a template

If you're looking for something simple, or not confident about design, check out the following tools

I want to design my own profile with components

Widgets (Badges, links, etc.)

Images

3 Ways to Add an Image to GitHub README | Sean C Daviswww.seancdavis.com

ASCII Art

Text to ASCII Art Generator (TAAG)patorjk.com

Some (opinionated) advice on metrics

Many GitHub widgets focus a lot on metrics to measure output. These can be fun for some folks, but they notably don't measure quality, and sometimes conversations about GitHub commits are turned into an unreasonable measure. "Good developers" aren't measured in Lines of Code written, or commits per day.

I once wrote a bot that backed up our build server's Jenkins configuration to GitHub every three hours. For security reasons, I created an isolated GitHub account with access to only one repo. The bot's commit history looked like a grid of uniform green. To the outside world, it might look like the perfect developer. But it was a mindless script running via cron job. Remember that commits can be gamed, and it's normal to take breaks, have work / life balance, and don't get overly focused on numbers.

Sources & Further Reading

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Last updated 3 years ago

hashtagHow does it work?

hashtagThat's great, but why does this matter?

hashtagHow do I get started?

hashtagI want to use a template

hashtagI want to design my own profile with components

hashtagWidgets (Badges, links, etc.)

hashtagImages

hashtagASCII Art

hashtagSome (opinionated) advice on metrics

hashtagSources & Further Reading