GitHub outage: Web, API traffic hit by high error rates; downloads see 50% failures
GitHub is experiencing a widespread service disruption, with several of its core services reporting degraded performance and availability, according to the company’s status page.
The incident began at around 1:40 pm UTC on August 17 when GitHub said it was investigating reports of impacted performance across some services. The disruption subsequently spread to Pull Requests, Issues, Actions, API Requests, Webhooks, Pages, Git Operations and Copilot.
Web and API traffic hit by 20% error rate
GitHub later reported an approximately 20% error rate across web experiences and API traffic. The company said archive downloads and raw repository content downloads were experiencing about a 50% error rate.
Several enterprise authentication and management services were also affected, including SAML and OIDC authentication, SCIM and Team Sync.
As of the latest update at 16:16 UTC, GitHub said it was still working to identify the root cause while carrying out mitigation measures.
Multiple GitHub services affected
The disruption has affected a broad range of GitHub features. Pull Requests and Issues reported degraded availability, while Actions, Webhooks, Pages, API Requests and Git Operations also experienced problems. GitHub Copilot was similarly affected.
The company has continued to investigate and deploy mitigations but has not yet identified the root cause of the incident, according to its latest status update.
Downloads face higher failure rates
The impact appears particularly significant for users attempting to download repository content. GitHub said archive downloads and raw repository content downloads were seeing failure rates of approximately 50%, substantially higher than the 20% error rate reported for web and API traffic.
GitHub’s status page continues to list the incident as unresolved, with affected services showing degraded performance or major outages.
Latest status: GitHub is continuing mitigation efforts and investigation. No root cause has been announced so far.
What is GitHub?
GitHub is a website where people store, share, and work together on computer code and software projects.
Think of it as Google Drive + collaboration tools, but mainly for software code.
Suppose you’re building a website.
-You write the code on your computer.
-You upload the code to GitHub.
-Other developers can view it, suggest changes, or work on it.
-GitHub keeps a history of every change, so you can go back to an older version if something goes wrong.
Git is a version-control system. It tracks changes made to files.
GitHub is the online platform built around Git that makes it easier to store and collaborate on those projects.
What can you do on GitHub?
-Repositories (repos): Store an entire software project.
-Version control: Track every change to the code.
-Collaboration: Multiple developers can work on the same project.
-Issues: Report bugs or request features.
-Pull requests: Propose changes and have others review them.
-Stars: Bookmark/show appreciation for projects.
-Open source: Find and use software projects created by developers around the world.
GitHub Actions: Automate tasks such as testing and deploying software.
Why is GitHub important?
A huge amount of modern software is developed or shared through GitHub. You can find projects ranging from small personal programs to major open-source software and AI tools.
For example, if someone creates an open-source AI application, they might publish its source code on GitHub so anyone can inspect it, download it, modify it and contribute improvements.
GitHub is an online platform for storing code, tracking changes, and collaborating on software projects.
