The Contribution Graph is perhaps the most iconic part of a GitHub profile: a grid of green squares representing your activity over the past year.

Each square is a day, each shade of green reflects the amount of activity, and blank days show no contributions. The color intensity isn’t universal - it’s relative to your personal highs and lows.

Clicking on any square reveals that day’s contributions, and selecting a range lets you explore weeks or months of work. Beneath the graph, you’ll also find a feed with details of your recent activity.

What counts as a contribution?

Not every action adds a green square. According to the Profile Contributions reference:

• Creating or forking repositories always counts.
• Opening issues, pull requests, or discussions counts when done in non-fork repos.
• Submitting reviews on pull requests also appears as activity, within daily display limits.
• Commits count only if: the email is linked to your account, the repo is not a fork, and the commit is on the default branch (like main) or gh-pages.

Common questions and misconceptions

• Why don’t my commits show up?
  Often it’s because the commit email isn’t verified, or the work happened in a fork or on a non-default branch. Full information are in this guide.

• Why are my greens different from someone else’s?
  Because the scale is personal. Your darkest green reflects your busiest day in the past 12 months, not a universal number.

💡 Understanding Missing Contributions

If you’ve noticed that some contributions are not showing up on your profile or contribution graph, there are a few common reasons. Before opening a bug report or asking for support, check these possible causes — most of the time the issue is already documented, and the fix is straightforward.

Some frequent causes include:

• The email used in your commits is not associated with or not verified on your GitHub account.

• You committed to a branch that is not the repository’s default branch (usually main or master). Only contributions to the default branch are counted.

• The repository is a fork, or your commits haven’t been merged upstream yet. Contributions from forks don’t appear unless merged into the parent repository.

• Your privacy settings may be hiding private contributions. To show them, you need to explicitly enable Include private contributions on my profile.

• Some types of contributions (like opened issues or pull requests) may not count if they’re drafts or don’t meet the required criteria.

• Sync delays - contributions may take some time to process and show up on your graph.

For a full reference with all the criteria, examples, and troubleshooting steps, see the official documentation: Troubleshooting missing contributions.

🔍 Keep Exploring

If you’d like to go deeper, here are the official GitHub docs referenced throughout this guide:

• About Achievements
• Viewing contributions on your profile
• Profile Contributions reference
• Troubleshooting missing contributions

🌿 The Bigger Picture

Your Contribution Graph captures the rhythm of your activity on GitHub - every commit, pull request, and idea you share.
In this guide, we covered what counts as a contribution, why some actions might not appear, and how to troubleshoot common issues.

Each square represents your effort to learn, collaborate, and build. Over time, those moments add up to show how you’ve grown across projects and communities.

💭 Anything Missing?

Is there something we didn’t cover or a question you’d like answered?
Share your thoughts in the comments below 👇 - your feedback helps us keep this guide clear, complete, and useful for everyone.