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FREEBeginnerModule 3 路 Lesson 2

GitHub achievements and what they mean

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Pull Shark
Galaxy Brain
Starstruck
Quickdraw
YOLO
Pair Extraordinaire
Public Sponsor

What achievements are

GitHub shows small badges on your profile called achievements. Each one recognises a specific kind of activity, such as having a pull request merged or answering a discussion. They are a light, friendly way to mark milestones in your open source journey. They do not measure skill, but they do show that you take part.

Tiers

Some achievements have levels. You earn the Default version first, and the badge changes to Bronze, Silver and Gold as your count grows. Other achievements are one time only, so there is a single version to unlock.

Earning them honestly

The most useful way to collect achievements is to do the real activity behind them. Asking people to star your repositories in exchange for stars of their own can get you flagged as spam, and merging pull requests without a review on a shared project is bad practice. Use your own repositories for experiments and ask for reviews on shared ones.

A few examples

  • Pull Shark: open pull requests that get merged. The best place to start is a good first issue on a project you care about. A reviewed pull request also counts toward your contribution graph.
  • Starstruck: own a repository that earns stars from other users. Build something useful and document it well.
  • Galaxy Brain: answer a GitHub Discussion and have your answer marked as accepted. Clear, tested answers are most likely to be accepted.
  • Quickdraw: close an issue or pull request within five minutes of opening it. You can do this in your own repository with a small task.
  • Public Sponsor: sponsor an open source maintainer through GitHub Sponsors. Pick a maintainer whose project you actually use.

Highlights and retired badges

Some badges come from programs instead of activity counts, for example subscribing to GitHub Pro or being part of the Campus Expert program. A few badges, such as the Mars 2020 Contributor badge, can no longer be earned because the event they celebrated is over.

Skin tones

Several achievements change appearance with your emoji skin tone preference. You can pick yours in your GitHub appearance settings, and the badge guide shows all the variants.

Where to look next

The full badge guide on this site lists every badge, the count needed for each tier, the program badges and the retired ones. It also includes your own checklist, so you can tick off the achievements you already have and see your progress.

Try it yourself

Pick one achievement that you can work toward this week, for example opening a pull request on a good first issue. Write down the goal, do the real work and check your profile afterwards. You will learn more from one genuine contribution than from any shortcut.

Starstruck

TODO: write original content

Pull Shark

TODO: write original content

Galaxy Brain

TODO: write original content

Quick Draw

TODO: write original content

YOLO

TODO: write original content

Pair Extraordinaire

TODO: write original content

Public Sponsor

TODO: write original content