🏆 GitHub Profile Achievements — Complete Guide

Every badge. Every tier. Every requirement. The most comprehensive and up-to-date reference for GitHub profile achievements.

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🏅 Achievement Badges

Tiered Achievements

Badge	Name	How to Earn	DEFAULT	🥉 BRONZE	🥈 SILVER	🥇 GOLD
	Starstruck	Created a repository that has many stars	16	128	512	4096
	Pull Shark	Opened a pull request that has been merged	2	16	128	1024
	Galaxy Brain	Answered a discussion and got an accepted answer	2	8	16	32
	Pair Extraordinaire	Coauthored commits on a merged pull request	1	10	24	48

Single-Tier Achievements

Badge	Name	How to Earn
	Quickdraw	Gitty up! Closed an issue or pull request within 5 minutes of opening
	YOLO	Merged a pull request without a code review
	Public Sponsor	Sponsored an open source contributor through GitHub Sponsors

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🔍 How to Earn Each Badge

Starstruck

Create a public repository that other developers find valuable enough to star. The base badge unlocks at 16 stars — higher tiers reward increasingly popular repos up to 4,096 stars.

Tips:

• Build something that solves a real problem — utilities, templates, guides, or dev tools
• Write a clear README with usage examples and screenshots
• Share your work in relevant communities and on social media
• Consistency matters: maintain and update your repo over time

Tier	Stars Required
Default	16
🥉 Bronze	128
🥈 Silver	512
🥇 Gold	4,096

Pull Shark

Open pull requests on any repository (including your own) and get them merged. The base badge requires just 2 merged PRs.

Tips:

• Contribute bug fixes, documentation, or features to open source projects
• Even small typo fixes count as merged PRs
• Your own repos count too — useful for solo developers
• Look for repos with good first issue labels to get started

Tier	Merged PRs Required
Default	2
🥉 Bronze	16
🥈 Silver	128
🥇 Gold	1,024

Galaxy Brain

Participate in GitHub Discussions (specifically the Q&A category). When a question author marks your answer as accepted, it counts toward this badge. You need 2 accepted answers to start.

Tips:

• Look for unanswered questions in repos you're familiar with
• Provide clear, well-formatted answers with code examples
• Repos must have Discussions enabled with the Q&A category active
• Focus on popular repos where questions get frequent traffic

Tier	Accepted Answers Required
Default	2
🥉 Bronze	8
🥈 Silver	16
🥇 Gold	32

Pair Extraordinaire

Add a co-author trailer to a commit message in a merged pull request:

Co-authored-by: Name <email@example.com>

This works when you collaborate with another developer on a commit. You need just 1 co-authored merged PR for the base badge.

Tips:

• This badge rewards genuine pair programming and collaboration
• The co-author must have a valid GitHub account linked to that email
• Works on any repository, including private ones

Tier	Co-authored Merged PRs Required
Default	1
🥉 Bronze	10
🥈 Silver	24
🥇 Gold	48

Quickdraw

Open an issue or pull request and close it within 5 minutes. That's it — speed is all that matters. No tiers, just a single badge.

Tip: This is often earned accidentally, but you can do it intentionally on any repo you have write access to.

YOLO

Merge a pull request that has no reviews at all — no approvals, no comments, no change requests. Living dangerously.

Note: This is easiest on your own repos where branch protection rules don't require reviews.

Public Sponsor

Go to GitHub Sponsors and sponsor any open source contributor or organization. Even a $1/month sponsorship qualifies.

Tip: Your sponsorship must be set to public (not private) to earn the badge.

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🧪 Beta Badges

These badges have been spotted in testing but aren't fully rolled out. Requirements and tier thresholds may change.

Badge	Name	Likely Requirement	DEFAULT	🥉 BRONZE	🥈 SILVER	🥇 GOLD
	Heart On Your Sleeve	React with ❤️ to content on GitHub	?	?	?	?
	Open Sourcerer	Have PRs merged in multiple public repos you don't own	?	?	?	?

⚠️ Note: These badges may appear and disappear from profiles as GitHub experiments with them.

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🧊 Retired Badges

These badges are no longer obtainable — they were tied to one-time historical events.

Badge	Name	Original Requirement
	Mars 2020 Contributor	Contributed code to a repository used in the Mars 2020 Helicopter Mission
	Arctic Code Vault Contributor	Contributed code to a repository in the 2020 GitHub Archive Program

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✨ Highlight Badges

Highlight badges appear separately from achievements and represent program memberships or recognitions.

Badge	Name	How to Get
	Pro	Subscribe to GitHub Pro
	Developer Program Member	Join the GitHub Developer Program
	Security Bug Bounty Hunter	Find vulnerabilities through GitHub Security
	GitHub Campus Expert	Participate in the GitHub Campus Program
	Security Advisory Credit	Have your advisory submitted to the GitHub Advisory Database accepted

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👋 Skin Tone Variants

Some achievements support emoji skin tone customization. Change yours in appearance settings.

Starstruck Skin Tones

👋	👋🏻	👋🏼	👋🏽	👋🏾	👋🏿

Quickdraw Skin Tones

👋	👋🏻	👋🏼	👋🏽	👋🏾	👋🏿

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⚙️ Settings & Display

• Achievements are visible by default on your public profile
• Toggle them off in Profile Settings
• Change skin tone preferences in Appearance Settings
• Official docs: Personalizing your profile

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