Why are commits in forks not counted as contributions in profile?

[marcospgp]

Select Topic Area

Question

Body

As explained here: https://anuragbhandari.com/coding-tech/someone-should-fix-how-github-counts-contributions-1591/

Some forks are actual standalone repos, intended to be maintained separately from the parent repository, but periodically synced.

[norwd]

I can't speak to the the why but there is a third option for how.

That article lists two options for working around this limitation and explains why neither is ideal.

1. Open a pull request to have your changes merged into the parent repository.

   Opening a pull request in the parent repository just does not make sense when the upstream is intentionally boilerplate. Asking its author to merge your commits into it would be like asking them to publicly publish the solution to their puzzle.

2. To detach the fork and turn it into a standalone repository on GitHub, contact GitHub Support or GitHub Premium Support. If the fork has forks of its own, let support know if the forks should move with your repository into a new network or remain in the current network. For more information, see “About forks.”

   Contact GitHub support? Really? Who has the time and patience to do that when you’re working with dozens of forks?

There is a third option, one that preserves commit history and allows contributions to be shown. And that is to manually create a non-fork repo and push to that as the origin. This is super easy with the gh command line tool but can also be done manually.

So for example, I've forked https://github.com/norwd/should-you-have-some-coffee from https://github.com/marcospgp/should-you-have-some-coffee and made some commits that I want to show in my contributions.

Right now that commit is not showing in my contributions graph, but if I clone the repo locally and rename the fork I can create a new repo that has the same name and origin as my fork but isn't treated as a fork by GitHub.

gh repo clone norwd/should-you-have-some-coffee
cd should-you-have-some-coffee
gh repo rename should-you-have-some-coffee-fork --confirm
git remote rm origin
gh repo create should-you-have-some-coffee --public --source=. --remote=origin --push

What this does is move the fork to a separate repo that stays as a fork (you can delete this manually later) then creates a new repo that has the same name as the original fork and pushes all your commits there instead. Now my contribution activity shows that commit I made earlier in that fork.

I know that this isn't the same as GitHub adding a button to change a fork to a standalone repo without contacting support, but it's still super quick and easy 😄

[jogeshwar01]

If anyone is getting this error on running gh commands -

could not prompt: Incorrect function.
You appear to be running in MinTTY without pseudo terminal support.

Just prepend winpty to the start of the command

[0xVitalii]

Thank you for the amazing solution! You saved us tons of time!

[ksingh62]

when i try to rename with gh repo rename. I get this error HTTP 404: Not Found (https://api.github.com/repos/wesbos/JavaScript30)

[ksingh62]

figured out the error myself. The repo didn't had the remote set by default. It only had the upstream for some reason.

[Matthew-Jennings]

Fantastic, thank you so much!

[joanaleoni]

[norwd]

@joanaleoni, can you please elaborate on what you mean by "Privacy and Security"?

Commits to private repos already show in the contribution graph (assuming you have "Include private contributions on my profile" enabled). So commits to a private fork showing up in the contribution graph are not exposing any information.

[fathi-riham-mn]

Privacy and Security:

GitHub offers private repositories that are not visible to the public. This means that the code and commit history in these repositories are restricted to authorized collaborators, ensuring that sensitive or proprietary information is not exposed to the public.
Users have the option to enable or disable the visibility of their private contributions on their public profile. If "Include private contributions on my profile" is enabled, then some information about commits made in private repositories is shown on the user's public contribution graph. This is typically done to reflect a more complete picture of a user's activity on GitHub, even if some of their work is in private repositories.
Contribution Graph:

GitHub provides a contribution graph on each user's profile, showing a visual representation of their activity over time. This includes commits, pull requests, and other contributions to repositories.
If a user commits to a private repository or a private fork of a repository and has chosen to include private contributions on their profile, those commits will be represented on the contribution graph. However, these contributions are not visible to other GitHub users; they only affect the user's personal contribution statistics.

[marcospgp]

Collaboration vs. Independent Work: the purpose of counting contributions on a profile is to highlight the collaborative work done directly on a project. Commits in forks are often considered independent work since they are not made directly in the original repository.

@joanaleoni Don't commits to my own personal repos count? By that logic, they shouldn't 🤔

I expected forks to act as any other repo. A fork is just a label, and there is a way to create an exactly equal repo without it, commits to which do count as contributions.

[fathi-riham-mn]

Commits to Your Own Personal Repositories:

Commits to your own personal repositories typically do count as contributions on your contribution graph. GitHub tracks your activity in repositories, regardless of whether they are personal, private, or public. These contributions are considered part of your overall GitHub activity.
Forks:

Forks on GitHub serve as copies of repositories. When you fork a repository, you create your own version of it, which is still connected to the original repository. Commits to forks can indeed count as contributions on your profile, just like commits to any other repository.
The distinction between a fork and a repository you create from scratch is that a fork maintains a connection to the original repository, allowing you to submit pull requests and contribute changes back to the original repository.
Creating a Separate, Independent Repository:

If you want commits to be counted as contributions without any connection to the original repository (fork), you can create a new repository from scratch. This repository will be entirely independent, and commits to it will count as contributions on your profile.
Keep in mind that forking is useful when you want to contribute to an existing project or collaborate on open-source work, as it facilitates the process of submitting changes and merging them back into the original project.

[HgAlexx]

Hello,

I too would love to have an option to show contributions (commit/issues/etc) into fork counted on my activity profile.

In my case, I've taken over the maintenance of a project, I've forked it and worked on that fork since.

I will never do a pull request on the parent repo, which is effectively dead, and I would prefer to keep the parent/fork link for historical purposes.

Regards,