Your GitHub profile showcases your work, contributions, and information you choose to share publicly.
Important
Any details you add to your public profile will be visible to all GitHub users, including in regions where local laws, regulations, or cultural norms may pose risks to expressing your identity. We respect everyone's decision about whether or not to share information about themselves on their GitHub profile.
Key profile elements
Your profile includes these customizable elements:
- Profile README: A customizable section at the top of your profile
- Personal info: Profile picture, name, pronouns, and bio
- Contribution activity: Visualizes your work on GitHub
- Pinned items: Repositories and gists you choose to highlight
- Status: Shows your current availability and what you're working on
- Achievements and badges: Recognizes your participation in programs or milestones
Your profile README
You can share information about yourself with the community on GitHub by creating a profile README. GitHub shows your profile README at the top of your profile page.
You decide what information to include in your profile README, so you have full control over how you present yourself on GitHub. Here are some examples of information that visitors may find interesting, fun, or useful in your profile README.
- An "About me" section that describes your work and interests
- Contributions you're proud of, and context about those contributions
- Guidance for getting help in communities where you're involved
You can format text and include emoji, images, and GIFs in your profile README by using GitHub Flavored Markdown. For more information, see Getting started with writing and formatting on GitHub.
Private profiles
To hide parts of your profile page, you can make your profile private. This also hides your activity in various social features on GitHub. A private profile hides information from all users, and there is currently no option to allow specified users to see your activity.
After making your profile private, you can still view all your information when you visit your own profile.
For more information, see Setting your profile to private.
Differences between private and public profiles
When your profile is private, the following content is hidden from your profile page:
- Achievements and highlights
- Activity overview and activity feed
- Contribution graph
- Follower and following counts
- Follow and Sponsor buttons
- Organization memberships
- Stars, projects, packages, and sponsoring tabs
- Your pronouns
When your profile is private, the following optional fields are still publicly visible:
- README
- Bio
- Profile picture
When your profile is private, your GitHub activity will not appear in the following locations:
- Activity feeds for other users
- Discussions leaderboards
- Site-wide search results
- The Trending page
Profile visibility options
You can control the visibility of specific profile elements or set your entire profile to private.
Next steps
- For a general tutorial on personalizing your profile, see Personalize your profile.
- For more specific profile customization, see Setting up and managing your GitHub profile.
- For reference information, see Profile reference.