<-- Go Back

Getting Started with Github Badges

Badges will make you look cool & geeky!

Github Badge is a simple embeddable badge showing your GitHub stats like the number of stars or forks, languages used in the project, CI/CD build status, the license of the project, open issues count for the project, etc. Maybe that’s what badges used to be. But now, the introduction of the special repo(github.com/username/username) allows users to showcase their projects, skills, and what-not on their profile page. Special repository in GitHub is a feature that is recently launched by GitHub in its latest update. It is a repository that shows up on the top of all the repositories when someone visits your profile page.

Why do you want badges?

Badges are cool and make your repo(or profile) looks geeky. Adding badges to the README file will help in increasing the readability of repo because they provide performance indicators or metrics about the repositories. Readers will get a clear idea of the project just by looking at the badges.

Let’s look at some of the cool badges and how to generate them for your repo. For generating a badge for your GitHub repository, all you’ve to do is fill in your username and repo details in the templates below and paste the markdown to your README file.

Popular Badges by category

Build (Travis)

Travis badge shows the last build status of the project. Some of the popular tools are Github Actions, Travis CI, and CircleCI.

  • Setup your Travis CI automated build
  • Update your repo details in below markdown code

    • [![Build Status](https://travis-ci.com/username/repo.svg?branch=master)](https://travis-ci.com/username/repo)

    Code Coverage (Codecov)

    [![Code Coverage](https://img.shields.io/codecov/c/github/username/repo)](https://codecov.io/github/username/repo)

    Chat

    [![Slack](https://badgen.net/badge/icon/slack?icon=slack&label)](https://join.slack.com/invite_code)
    [![Telegram](https://badgen.net/badge/icon/telegram?icon=telegram&label)](https://t.me/invite_code)
    [![Gitter](https://img.shields.io/gitter/room/username/repo)](https://gitter.im/username/repo)
    [![Discord](https://img.shields.io/discord/server_id)](https://discord.gg/invite_code)

    Dependencies

    Depfu is a tool for keeping track of dependencies of a project. It scans your project dependencies and automatically creates PRs for updating these dependencies.

    ![Depfu](https://img.shields.io/depfu/username/repo)

    Size

    ![GitHub code size in bytes](https://img.shields.io/github/languages/code-size/username/repo)

    Downloads

    ![GitHub Releases](https://img.shields.io/github/downloads/username/repo/version/total)

    Funding

    [![Kofi](https://badgen.net/badge/icon/kofi?icon=kofi&label)](https://ko-fi.com/username)

    Social Media

    You may want to connect with your visitors using various social media platforms like Medium, Pinterest, Linkedin, Twitter, etc.
    Medium


    Readymade Badge
    [![Medium Badge](https://badgen.net/badge/icon/medium?icon=medium&label)](https://medium.com/username)
    Customizable Badge
    [![Medium Badge](https://img.shields.io/badge/username-black?style=flat&logo=medium&logoColor=white&link= https://medium.com/username)](https://medium.com/username)

    Twitter


    Simple Badge
    [![Twitter Badge](https://img.shields.io/twitter/follow/username.svg?style=social&label=Follow)]( https://twitter.com/username)
    Cool UI Badge
    [![Twitter Badge](https://badgen.net/badge/icon/twitter?icon=twitter&label)](https://twitter.com/username)

    Pinterest

    [![Pinterest Badge](https://img.shields.io/badge/username-red?style=flat&logo=pinterest&logoColor=white&link= https://www.pinterest.com/username)](https://www.pinterest.com/username)

    Issue Tracking

    ![GitHub issues](https://img.shields.io/github/issues/username/repo)

    License

    An open-source license for the project can be selected from choosealicense.

    ![GitHub](https://img.shields.io/github/license/username/repo)

    Other

    ![Hits](https://hitcounter.pythonanywhere.com/count/tag.svg?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgithub.com%2Fusername%2Frepo)

    These are some of the popular categories of badges. Apart from this, you can have badges for your web pages too. For more cool badges visit forthebadge.

    Conclusion

    Badges make you feel confident about your projects because they show the status of CI/CD builds, version of dependencies, no. of open issues, latest activity, major language, and size of code. Apart from this geeky point of view, you can connect with your visitors via social media, ask for sponsorship, showcase your skills, and a lot more fun stuff with these badges.

    No one will go through your code if they don’t understand your project summary. Say it simply using badges. Badges improve the readability of a GitHub repository by providing the users with metrics about the repository. As we know a picture is worth a thousand words. Have fun!