The complete unofficial catalog — every badge, every tier, every highlight, every retired design.
How it works · Active · GitHub staff · Retired · Unreleased · Tiers · Highlights · Follow the news
Achievements appear in the sidebar of a GitHub profile. GitHub does not publish a full official list, so this repository is the reference: criteria, tiers, skin-tone variants, profile highlights, staff-only badges, historic 2021 artwork, and full unlocked dialogs in light and dark mode.
This feature is in public preview and can change. Thresholds below are community-verified.
The catalog is split by status: active (you can still earn them), GitHub staff (internal only), retired (Arctic, Mars — they stay on profiles but nobody new can unlock them), and unreleased (seen in experiments; GitHub has not said if or when they ship).
| Where they show | Small badges in the profile sidebar. Hover or click for the unlocked dialog, a short hint, and links to the events that earned it. |
| Private events | Links stay hidden from anyone who cannot access the repository or organization. Private contributions can still count unless you turn that off. |
| Opt out | Achievements are on by default. Hide them in profile settings. |
| Skin tone | Starstruck and Quickdraw follow your emoji skin tone. |
| Not the same as Highlights | Achievements are activity badges. Highlights (Pro, Campus Expert, …) are program badges under the bio. |
Earnable on a normal account today. Galaxy Brain is limited: it still works in repository Discussions, not in GitHub Community.
| Badge | Achievement | How to earn | Default | Bronze | Silver | Gold |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Pair Extraordinaire | Coauthored commits on a merged pull request (Co-authored-by: Name <email>) |
1 | 10 | 24 | 48 |
|
Quickdraw | Close an issue or pull request within 5 minutes of opening | 1 | — | — | — |
|
Starstruck | Create a repository that reaches this many stars | 16 | 128 | 512 | 4096 |
|
Galaxy Brain | Have a Discussions reply marked as the accepted answer. Not awarded in GitHub Community since Feb 2024 | 2 | 8 | 16 | 32 |
|
Pull Shark | Open a pull request that gets merged | 2 | 16 | 128 | 1024 |
|
YOLO | Merge your own pull request with no review (bot reviews often block it) | 1 | — | — | — |
|
Public Sponsor | Sponsor an open source contributor via GitHub Sponsors | 1 | — | — | — |
Internal only. Awarded for GitHub’s own “Proxima” work. You cannot earn these through public activity.
| Badge | Achievement | Earned by | Live example |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Proxima Pioneer | M0 participant — contributed to the Proxima POC | @brannon |
|
Proxima Staffshipper | M8 participant — shipped a Proxima Staffship instance | @brannon |
|
Proxima Staffuser | Team onboarded to Proxima | @timrogers |
Event badges. If you earned them, they stay on your profile. Nobody new can unlock them.
| Badge | Achievement | What it was | When |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Arctic Code Vault Contributor | You contributed to a public repo included in the 2020 GitHub Archive Program snapshot (2 Feb 2020), later stored in Svalbard. | Snapshot 2020. Badge from Jul 2020. |
|
Mars 2020 Contributor | You had a commit on a repo/version NASA JPL used for the Ingenuity helicopter. | Awarded 19 Apr 2021. Event over. Qualifying repos. |
Original 2021 artwork (before the 2022 redesign) is under Historic designs.
Seen in GitHub’s asset pipeline and on a few staff/test profiles. No public launch date. GitHub staff said they were an experimental rollout, were re-enabled briefly by mistake, then taken down again (Community #190842). Watch that thread and Announcements if they ever ship for real.
| Badge | Achievement | Likely criteria (community) | Default | Bronze | Silver | Gold |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Heart On Your Sleeve | React to something on GitHub with a heart emoji | ? | 16 | 128 | ? |
|
Open Sourcerer | Pull requests merged in multiple public repositories | ? | 8 | 16 | 64 |
Some achievements upgrade in place. The badge on your profile is always the highest tier you hold. Labels use GitHub’s x2 / x3 / x4 colors. Heart On Your Sleeve and Open Sourcerer tiers are listed for reference only — see Unreleased.
| Tier | Label | Hex |
|---|---|---|
| Bronze |  |
#F9BFA7 |
| Silver |  |
#E1E4E4 |
| Gold |  |
#FAE57E |
Coauthored commits on merged pull requests.
| Default · 1 | Bronze · 10 | Silver · 24 | Gold · 48 |
|---|---|---|---|
|
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 |
 |
Stars on a repository you created.
| Default · 16 | Bronze · 128 | Silver · 512 | Gold · 4096 |
|---|---|---|---|
|
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Accepted answers in Discussions.
| Default · 2 | Bronze · 8 | Silver · 16 | Gold · 32 |
|---|---|---|---|
|
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Merged pull requests.
| Default · 2 | Bronze · 16 | Silver · 128 | Gold · 1024 |
|---|---|---|---|
|
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 |
 |
Heart reactions. Experimental; GitHub has not announced a public launch.
| Default · ? | Bronze · 16 | Silver · 128 | Gold · ? |
|---|---|---|---|
|
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 |
 |
Pull requests merged across multiple public repositories. Experimental; GitHub has not announced a public launch.
| Default · ? | Bronze · 8 | Silver · 16 | Gold · 64 |
|---|---|---|---|
|
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 |
Highlights sit under achievements on the profile. They are program badges, not activity achievements. GitHub documents them in the profile reference.
| Badge | Highlight | How to get |
|---|---|---|
  |
Pro | Use GitHub Pro |
  |
Developer Program Member | Join the GitHub Developer Program and build with the API |
  |
Security Bug Bounty Hunter | Help find vulnerabilities through GitHub Security |
  |
GitHub Campus Expert | Participate in Campus Experts |
  |
Security advisory credit | Have an advisory accepted into the GitHub Advisory Database |
Starstruck and Quickdraw follow Settings → Appearance → Emoji skin tone.
| Default | Light | Light medium | Medium | Medium dark | Dark | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starstruck | |
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 |
 |
 |
 |
| Quickdraw | |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Live examples of each badge at 100%. One profile per badge — no repeats. Every cell is the same small badge; click the profile to open GitHub’s dialog.
Pair Extraordinaire @DenverCoder1 |
Quickdraw @anuraghazra |
Starstruck @anuraghazra |
Galaxy Brain @DenverCoder1 |
Pull Shark @ljharb |
YOLO @driesvints |
Public Sponsor @christianalberto |
Arctic Code Vault @ryo-ma |
Mars 2020 Contributor @torvalds |
Proxima Pioneer · internal @brannon |
Proxima Staffshipper · internal @brannon |
Proxima Staffuser · internal @timrogers |
From the Ingenuity announcement (19 Apr 2021) until the achievements expansion (9 Jun 2022), the first three badges used different names and art.
- GitHub Sponsor
+ Public Sponsor
- Mars 2020 Helicopter Contributor
+ Mars 2020 Contributor| 2021–2022 badge | Name then |
|---|---|
 |
GitHub Sponsor |
 |
Arctic Code Vault Contributor |
 |
Mars 2020 Helicopter Contributor |
| Goal | Where |
|---|---|
| Hide achievements on your profile | Profile settings → uncheck Show Achievements on my profile |
| Stop private contributions from counting | Same page → contribution & achievement visibility. Docs: manage visibility |
| Change Starstruck / Quickdraw skin tone | Appearance → Emoji skin tone |
| Official (incomplete) reference | Profile reference |
The Mars 2020 Contributor badge was given for a commit on a repo/version NASA JPL listed. The event has ended. Full official table: qualifying repositories.
Official list (repo · version)
| Repository | Version |
|---|---|
| torvalds/linux | 3.4 |
| python/cpython | 3.9.2 |
| nasa/fprime | 1.3 |
| opencv/opencv | 4.5.1 |
| numpy/numpy | 1.20.1 |
| scipy/scipy | 1.6.1 |
| matplotlib/matplotlib | 3.3.4 |
| elastic/elasticsearch | 6.8.1 |
| curl/curl | 7.72.0 |
| twbs/bootstrap | 4.3.1 |
| vuejs/vue | 2.6.10 |
| pallets/flask | 1.1.1 |
| psf/requests | 2.25.1 |
| apache/lucene | 7.7.3 |
| madler/zlib | 1.2.11 |
Plus dozens of Python/Java dependencies (boto3, Pillow, pytest, log4j2, joda-time, …). See the official docs for tags.
GitHub does not keep a public changelog just for achievements. Staff posts land in GitHub Community (the official product forum) and, when they ship a bigger change, on the Blog and Changelog. Watch those three.
| Place | Why watch it |
|---|---|
| GitHub Community Discussions | Official product forum. Staff announcements, Q&A, and feedback. This is the main public place to stay on top of achievement changes. |
| Search: achievements | Every Community thread that mentions achievements. Subscribe or check it when something looks new on a profile. |
| Feedback thread #44972 | Long-running community thread on how badges work, edge cases, and missing criteria. Linked from GitHub’s 2022 launch post. |
| Staff: achievements off in Community | Official announcement (6 Feb 2024): you can no longer earn achievements inside github.com/orgs/community. Badges already earned stay. Repo Discussions elsewhere still count. |
| Staff: Heart / Open Sourcerer | Staff confirmed those two were an experimental rollout, briefly re-enabled by mistake, then removed again. No public launch date. |
Subscribe to a discussion (the Subscribe button on the thread) to get GitHub notifications when staff replies.
| Date | Source | What they announced |
|---|---|---|
| Nov 2019 | GitHub Universe / Archive Program | Arctic Code Vault: snapshot of public repos to preserve open source for ~1,000 years. |
| 8 Jul 2020 | Blog: code deposited in the Arctic | Vault sealed in Svalbard. Arctic Code Vault Contributor badge added to profiles of people who contributed to archived repos. |
| 19 Apr 2021 | Blog: Open source goes to Mars | Mars 2020 Helicopter badge for contributors to software used by Ingenuity. GitHub also introduces the Achievements section on profiles (Mars, Arctic, Sponsors). |
| 19 Apr 2021 | The ReadME Project: Ingenuity | Story behind the Mars badge (~12,000 developers). |
| 9 Jun 2022 | Blog: Introducing Achievements | Public beta of activity achievements (Pull Shark, YOLO, Galaxy Brain, Starstruck, Pair Extraordinaire, Quickdraw, …). Criteria kept playful on purpose. Opt-out in profile settings. |
| 9 Jun 2022 | Changelog: Achievements public beta | Same ship, in the product changelog. How to hide achievements or exclude private contributions. |
| 6 Feb 2024 | Community #106536 | Achievements turned off in GitHub Community because of spam (Galaxy Brain farming). Existing progress kept. Other repos unaffected. |
How to get pinged next time
- Watch github.blog/changelog (RSS: github.blog/changelog/feed) — this is where GitHub lists product ships.
- Watch GitHub Community → Announcements — staff posts like the 2024 Galaxy Brain change.
- Search github.blog for “achievements”.
- Official (still incomplete) docs: Earning Achievements and profile badges / Highlights.
Unofficial. Not affiliated with GitHub. Badge artwork belongs to GitHub, Inc. Thresholds are community-reported. If GitHub publishes an official list again, that wins.