Lots of people have been talking about and sharing their GitHub Profile READMEs. It was a project we launched last year and developers are loving it. As this feature became more popular, more developers were building templates, plugins, and apps for you to use on your profile.
This post from Supritha caught my attention. I like the way they talk about various pieces of code to have on your GitHub Profile README.
One of the comments from Guillaume Falourd pointed to a really cool project from Platane.
Platane
/
snk
🟩⬜ Generates a snake game from a github user contributions graph and output a screen capture as animated svg or gif
snk
Generates a snake game from a github user contributions graph
Pull a github user's contribution graph Make it a snake Game, generate a snake path where the cells get eaten in an orderly fashion.
Available as github action. It can automatically generate a new image each day. Which makes for great github profile readme
Usage
github action
- uses: Platane/snk@v3
with
# github user name to read the contribution graph from (**required**)
# using action context var `github.repository_owner` or specified user
github_user_name: ${{ github.repository_owner }}
# list of files to generate.
# one file per line. Each output can be customized with options as query string.
#
# supported options:
# - palette: A preset of color, one of [github, github-dark, github-light]
# - color_snake: Color of the snake
# - color_dots: Coma separated list of dots color.
# The…It uses GitHub Actions to build and update a user's contribution graph, and then has a snake eat all your contributions. The output generates a gif file, that you can then show on your GitHub Profile README. I thought this was pretty cool, so I set about adding this to my profile.
Step 1. Setting up GitHub Actions
The first thing you want to ensure before you start this project, is that you have GitHub Actions setup. Head to your Profile and ensure the "Actions" tab is available. Everyone should now have this feature.
Next, head to Platane's Action (available on the Marketplace) and make a copy of the code. You'll need to add this snippet into your Actions file.
Step 2. Creating your GitHub Actions yaml file
This is definitely the part where I got stuck. When looking at the code, I wasn't sure exactly where to add the lines of code mentioned on Marketplace.
After looking at the way Platane had their Actions file setup, I was able to generate the code (with a little help from Bdougie of course).
I've added the full code snippet below and added plenty of comments to (hopefully make it easy to understand).
You can copy this code straight into a blank *.yml file. Make sure you create a new *.yml file under the following directory:
YOUR_GITHUB_USERNAME --> .github --> workflows --> FILE_NAME.yml
# GitHub Action for generating a contribution graph with a snake eating your contributions.
name: Generate Snake
# Controls when the action will run. This action runs every 6 hours.
on:
schedule:
# every 6 hours
- cron: "0 */6 * * *"
# This command allows us to run the Action automatically from the Actions tab.
workflow_dispatch:
# The sequence of runs in this workflow:
jobs:
# This workflow contains a single job called "build"
build:
# The type of runner that the job will run on
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
# Steps represent a sequence of tasks that will be executed as part of the job
steps:
# Checks repo under $GITHUB_WORKSHOP, so your job can access it
- uses: actions/checkout@v2
# Generates the snake
- uses: Platane/snk@master
id: snake-gif
with:
github_user_name: mishmanners
# these next 2 lines generate the files on a branch called "output". This keeps the main branch from cluttering up.
gif_out_path: dist/github-contribution-grid-snake.gif
svg_out_path: dist/github-contribution-grid-snake.svg
# show the status of the build. Makes it easier for debugging (if there's any issues).
- run: git status
# Push the changes
- name: Push changes
uses: ad-m/github-push-action@master
with:
github_token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
branch: master
force: true
- uses: crazy-max/ghaction-github-pages@v2.1.3
with:
# the output branch we mentioned above
target_branch: output
build_dir: dist
env:
GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
Step 3. Running GitHub Actions
Once you've added the code above and committed it, head to your Actions tab. Under "Workflows", you should see the "Generate Snake" Action you created above.
Click "Run Workflow" and watch your workflow run. You can even expand your workflow and see what's happening in real time.
Once your workflow has finished running, you should have received a green ✅ "build" checkmark. If so, this means your Action is working nicely. If not, you'll have to go through the code and see where the errors are. The "build" status should give you some indication of where your errors lie. You can also compare it with the yaml file on my GitHub Profile README.
If you have the green "build" ✅ then you should be good to go. Head back to your repo's "Code" directory, and change your branch to "output". Here you'll find the two versions of your contribution graph with the snake eating it: a *.gif and a *.svg. The good thing about these files is the file is rewritten over itself every time the Action runs. Thus, your contribution graph will always be up to date.
Step 4. Adding a contribution-eating snake to your profile
Now the final set is to add this to your profile. Grab the file location of your *.gif. It should be something like:
https://github.com/YOUR_USERNAME/YOUR_USERNAME/blob/output/github-contribution-grid-snake.gif
Add this to your profile by copying the file location onto a new line in your markdown file:
Now you should have a really cool looking snake eating your contributions!
Hopefully this guide was helpful for you and gives you a good base to start building and adding more Actions on your profile. What have you been adding to your GitHub Profile README? Other there other cool Actions I should be looking at?
Top comments (42)
Work fine.! Here is mine - KushalTanna24
Great tutorial! Works for me.
Here's mine - github.com/msoftware
Awsome! How did you change the background-color?
I didn't change the background colour. It's a .png/.svg image, meaning the background is transparent. It looks dark on mine because I have dark mode enabled on GitHub. You can enable it by clicking Settings --> Appearance --> choosing your mode.
Thank you! actually I was using the .gif version, so I switched to the .svg one and voilá
Awesome! Glad to be of help 😄
Thanks Michelle Mannering for your (dev.to/mishmanners/how-to-enable-g...) topic.
If other users wish to utilize this, kindly modify this topic;
1-Use this (thanks Platane github.com/Platane) file;
github.com/1SeaMy/1SeaMy/blob/main...
2-Use this;
or this
Thank you so much! I tried to change in settings 'Contribution' to 'include my private contributions' but anyway my Readme profile doesn't show My Contributions. Could you please help me with this?
github.com/BAayah/BAayah
Hello everyone, before proceeding, please navigate to 'Settings -> Actions -> General -> Workflow Permissions' in your README.md file and select 'Read and Write' permissions. This is important because if you have other permissions selected, it may result in errors.
Getting this error when I try to run workflow and after it fails:
Node.js 12 actions are deprecated. Please update the following actions to use Node.js 16: actions/checkout@v2. For more information see: https://github.blog/changelog/2022-09-22-github-actions-all-actions-will-begin-running-on-node16-instead-of-node12/.
go to setting -> action -> and check the workflow as read and write
(run build again) hopefully you will not get error
Great worked for me. See github.com/bpolaswar
Thanks.
github.com/ariafatah0711/ariafatah...
Check my github and change this file because I tried the file above only as much as it appears if you want to use the full one I use. And don't forget to give stars😁
If the action fails, you can go to repo settings, click action, then select general, and look at the bottom where it says read and write.
It does not work for me. Can someone help me?
github.com/hoangtien2k3qx1
Error:
actions/checkout@v2, platane/snk@master, ad-m/github-push-action@master, and crazy-max/ghaction-github-pages@v2.1.3 are not allowed to be used in hoangtien2k3qx1/hoangtien2k3qx1. Actions in this workflow must be: within a repository owned by hoangtien2k3qx1.
Hi, i did everything right and even got the "build" status. But no output branch was created... why is that? Can someone help me? github.com/laurasiiia
I assume you're working off this folder: github.com/laurasiiia/laurasiiia/b...
Since you've got a newer repo (mine account was set up a number of years ago), you have the default branch set to "main". You might need to change the code to be "main" instead of "master".
I created a PR for you: github.com/laurasiiia/laurasiiia/p...
(run it and see if that works)... it might not but worth a shot. Feel free to jump in other people 😄
Awesome Tutorial! 🐍
Awesome!
It does not work for me. Can someone help me?
github.com/zieldecastro
instagram.com/zieldecastro/
Great tutorial!
But can anyone help me, its not showing all my contributions
github.com/shasank27/shasank27
Hey Shasank. I can't see it on your profile, but to show all contributions, you need to make sure all contributions are turned on your profile. You can do this in your settings:
github.com/YOUR_PROFILE --> Settings --> Profile
Then scroll down to "Contributions" and check the box that says "Include private contributions on my profile".
Hope that helps.
I got error "The process '/usr/bin/git' failed with exit code 128". Even though I tried to generate a new personal access token, it didn't work. Anybody has any solution for this error?