Creating a GitHub README Profile

GitHub recently released a feature that lets you introduce yourself to the GitHub community, using more visual contents such as pictures, GIFs, links, and everything else you can add to a normal README file, because it is markdown, which means you control the display of the document.

Now, there is a chance to give visitors a broad snapshot of who we are, as we highlight our skills and projects.

I will show you how to unlock this feature, and also share interesting use cases by users around the world.

To unlock this feature…

Create a new repository using the exact name as your GitHub username. For instance, my username is giwajossy, so the new repository had to be giwajossy.

Note: The naming is case-sensitive – at the time of this writing. Also, repositories are public by default, if you make it private, it won’t work.

Repository successfully created!

So I designed a banner, and placed it atop my new bio. Nothing too fancy!

Some Interesting use cases by other GitHub users

Pouya

@saadeghi

Is this how we suppose use github's readme?

06:23 AM - 09 Jul 2020

Simon Willison

@simonw

Made myself a self-updating GitHub personal README! It uses a GitHub Action to update itself with my latest GitHub releases, blog entries and TILs github.com/simonw

03:49 AM - 10 Jul 2020

Nate Moore

@n_moore

I embedded a @Spotify Now Playing widget in my @github profile README!

It's an SVG rendered on the fly via @vercel serverless function, included in the README via <img> tag.

Supremely over-engineered, but I discovered lots of fun hacks in the process.

github.com/natemoo-re/nat…

14:50 PM - 12 Jul 2020

Brian Douglas

@bdougieyo

Check it out. I made MySpace but on @github.

github.com/bdougie - My list is power by a GitHub Action workflow 😏

21:19 PM - 10 Jul 2020

Cyris ⭐️

@sudo_overflow

When you're not a designer so you try code something cool for your @github profile intro.

Code -> MP4 -> GIF

#Github #JavaScript

08:41 AM - 09 Jul 2020

Jason Lengstorf

@jlengstorf

hey, check out the new @github profile README! this is a really nice addition — I love that we can add some context (and/or nonsense) to our GitHub profiles now 😍

see mine: github.com/jlengstorf

thanks to @cassidoo for the heads up that this went live!

00:45 AM - 09 Jul 2020

kathy ☁️

@pifafu

hey, so we heard ya & are trying out a thing where you CAN have a readme on your @github profile...
@mikekavouras built it btw! re: twitter.com/pifafu/status/…

22:33 PM - 27 May 2020

kathy ☁️ @pifafu

👋 hiii—if you use @github, i was wondering: what are some of the things you would want others on GitHub to know about you?

Thanks for reading!

Hope you find this helpful.