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Appendix AE: GitHub Social — Stars, Following, and Finding Your Community

Episode coming soon: GitHub Social - a conversational audio overview of this appendix. Listen before reading to preview the concepts, or after to reinforce what you learned.

GitHub Is More Than a Code Host — It's a Community

Who this is for: You have learned the basics of GitHub and want to know how to use it as a social platform — discovering interesting projects, following developers whose work you admire, and building a presence in the open source community. This appendix covers the social layer of GitHub that most tutorials skip entirely.

GitHub has over 100 million developers on it. The social features — stars, follows, Explore, Topics, trending repos — are how you find the interesting ones, stay connected to projects you care about, and make yourself visible to the community.

Table of Contents

  1. Stars — Bookmarking and Signaling Projects You Love
  2. Watching Repositories — Staying in the Loop
  3. Following People — Building Your Developer Network
  4. Your Home Feed — What You See When You Log In
  5. GitHub Explore — Discovering New Projects
  6. Trending — What's Popular Right Now
  7. Topics — Finding Projects by Category
  8. GitHub Lists — Organizing Your Stars
  9. Finding Accessible and Inclusive Projects
  10. Building Your Own Presence
  11. The GitHub CLI for Social Features
  12. Screen Reader Navigation Guide

1. Stars — Bookmarking and Signaling Projects You Love

What a star is

A star is GitHub's version of a bookmark combined with a "like." When you star a repository:

  • It saves to your starred list at github.com/username?tab=stars — easy to find later
  • It signals to the maintainer that their work is valued
  • It contributes to the project's star count, which helps others discover it
  • It may appear in your followers' feeds

Why star count matters to projects

Star counts are a social proof signal — developers browsing for tools often sort by stars to find well-regarded projects. A project going from 10 stars to 1,000 stars can dramatically change how many contributors it attracts. Your star genuinely matters.

How to star a repository

GitHub.com

On any repository page, the Star button is in the top-right area of the repository header, next to Fork.

  • Click Star to star the repository — the button changes to Starred with a filled star icon
  • Click the dropdown arrow next to Star to choose a List to organize it into (see Section 8)
  • Click Starred to unstar

Keyboard shortcut

On a repository page, press g then s to toggle the star.

Screen reader navigation

  • NVDA/JAWS: The Star button is in the page region after the repository title heading. Navigate by button (B) or Tab to find it. It's announced as "Star this repository" or "Unstar this repository."
  • VoiceOver: VO+Command+J to jump to buttons, or Tab through the header area. The button label changes between "Star" and "Starred."

GitHub CLI

# Star a repository
gh api user/starred/owner/repo --method PUT

# Unstar a repository
gh api user/starred/owner/repo --method DELETE

# List your starred repositories
gh api user/starred --jq '.[].full_name'

# Check if you've starred a repo
gh api user/starred/owner/repo --silent && echo "Starred" || echo "Not starred"

Viewing your stars

Go to github.com/username?tab=stars — or click your avatar → Your stars.

You'll see all your starred repositories sorted by most recently starred. Use the search box to filter by name, and the language filter to narrow by programming language.

2. Watching Repositories — Staying in the Loop

What watching does

When you watch a repository, GitHub sends you notifications about activity in it — new issues, pull requests, releases, and more. Unlike stars (which are passive bookmarks), watching is active — you're opting into the conversation.

Watch levels

GitHub gives you granular control over how much you hear from a repo:

Level What you receive
Not watching Only notified if you're mentioned or have participated
Participating and @mentions Notified for threads you're in or @mentioned in (default for repos you contribute to)
All Activity Every issue, PR, comment, and release — for very active repos this can be noisy
Releases only Only new releases — great for tools you use and want to know when they update
Ignore Never notified, even if mentioned (useful for very noisy forks)

How to watch a repository

On any repository page, the Watch button is next to the Star button in the header.

  1. Click Watch to open the dropdown
  2. Choose your notification level
  3. The button updates to show your current setting

Tip: For most repositories you contribute to, "Participating and @mentions" is the right level — you hear about threads you're in without inbox overload. Use "Releases only" for dependencies and tools you use but don't contribute to.

GitHub CLI

# Watch a repository (all activity)
gh api repos/owner/repo/subscription --method PUT --field subscribed=true

# Watch releases only (requires GitHub.com — not available via API alone)
# Use the web UI for granular watch levels

# Ignore a repository
gh api repos/owner/repo/subscription --method PUT --field ignored=true

# List repositories you're watching
gh api user/subscriptions --jq '.[].full_name'

# Stop watching a repository
gh api repos/owner/repo/subscription --method DELETE

3. Following People — Building Your Developer Network

What following does

When you follow a developer on GitHub:

  • Their public activity appears in your home feed
  • You see when they star a repository, create a new repo, or get a new follower
  • They receive a notification that you followed them
  • You appear in their followers list

Following is one-way (like Twitter/X) — they don't need to follow you back.

Who to follow

Start with people whose work you already use:

  • Maintainers of tools and libraries you use daily
  • Authors of blog posts or talks that helped you learn
  • Developers in accessibility, open source, or your tech stack

Find them by:

  • Visiting the Contributors tab of a repository you love: github.com/owner/repo/graphs/contributors
  • Checking who opened issues or PRs you found valuable
  • Looking at who your existing follows follow

How to follow someone

On any user profile page (github.com/username), click the Follow button below their avatar. The button changes to Following.

To unfollow: click Following → it changes back to Follow.

Screen reader navigation

  • Navigate to the profile page
  • The Follow/Following button is near the top of the page, below the avatar and bio
  • NVDA/JAWS: press B to jump to buttons; the button is labelled "Follow [username]"
  • VoiceOver: Tab to the button or use VO+Command+J

GitHub CLI

# Follow a user
gh api user/following/username --method PUT

# Unfollow a user
gh api user/following/username --method DELETE

# List who you're following
gh api user/following --jq '.[].login'

# List your followers
gh api user/followers --jq '.[].login'

# Check if you follow a specific person
gh api user/following/username --silent && echo "Following" || echo "Not following"

# See who a user follows (useful for discovering new people)
gh api users/username/following --jq '.[].login'

Viewing someone's profile

A GitHub profile shows:

  • Pinned repositories — the 6 repos they've chosen to highlight
  • Contribution graph — a visual grid of their activity over the past year (green squares = more activity)
  • Recent activity — PRs opened, issues commented on, repos starred
  • Repositories — all their public repos
  • Stars — repos they've starred (great for discovery)
  • Followers / Following counts

Screen reader tip: The contribution graph is a visual calendar that screen readers may announce as a table or grid. Navigate with arrow keys to read individual day entries — each cell describes the date and number of contributions.

4. Your Home Feed — What You See When You Log In

When you go to github.com while logged in, your home feed shows activity from people and repositories you follow or watch.

What appears in your feed

  • Repositories starred by people you follow — "Jane starred awesome-accessibility"
  • New repositories created by people you follow
  • Releases from repositories you watch
  • Public activity from people you follow (PRs opened, issues commented on)
  • "For you" recommendations — GitHub suggests repos and people based on your activity

Your feed is a discovery tool

One of the best ways to find new interesting projects is to follow a few active developers in your area of interest and watch what they star. If 5 people you respect all starred the same new tool this week, it's probably worth a look.

Customising your feed

There's no fine-grained feed filter — you control the feed by controlling who you follow and what you watch. Unfollow noisy accounts, follow more focused ones.

5. GitHub Explore — Discovering New Projects

GitHub Explore at github.com/explore is the discovery hub — curated collections, trending repos, and personalised recommendations.

What Explore shows

  • Trending — most-starred repos this week (see Section 6)
  • Topics — browse by subject area (see Section 7)
  • Collections — curated lists of thematically related repos (e.g., "Tools for Open Source", "Accessibility Projects")
  • "For you" personalised recommendations — based on your stars, follows, and language preferences

Navigating Explore with a screen reader

  1. Go to github.com/explore
  2. The page uses landmark regions — jump to main to skip navigation
  3. Collections and trending repos are listed as article/heading groups
  4. Use heading navigation (H) to jump between sections
  5. Each repo entry has a heading (repo name as a link), language badge, star count, and description

6. Trending — What's Popular Right Now

GitHub Trending at github.com/trending shows repositories gaining the most stars over a time period. It's one of the best places to discover new tools before everyone else knows about them.

Filtering trending

Use the dropdowns at the top of the page to filter by:

Filter Options
Language Any programming language, or "All languages"
Time period Today, This week, This month

Trending developers

Switch to github.com/trending/developers to see which developers are gaining the most followers — another great way to find people to follow.

GitHub CLI

# Trending repos aren't in the official API, but you can get recently starred popular repos:
gh search repos --sort stars --order desc --limit 20 --language markdown

# Trending in a specific language
gh search repos --sort stars --order desc --limit 20 --language python

7. Topics — Finding Projects by Category

Every repository can be tagged with topics — keywords like accessibility, screen-reader, wcag, python, machine-learning. Topics are how maintainers categorise their work so others can discover it.

Browsing topics

Click any topic tag on a repository page to see all repos tagged with that topic. Or go directly:

https://github.com/topics/accessibility
https://github.com/topics/screen-reader
https://github.com/topics/good-first-issue

Useful topics for this community

Topic What you'll find
accessibility Tools, frameworks, and guides focused on a11y
screen-reader Projects specifically for screen reader users
wcag WCAG compliance tools and resources
a11y Short form of accessibility — many projects use this
good-first-issue Projects that welcome newcomers
help-wanted Projects actively looking for contributors
open-source General open source projects
assistive-technology AT tools and resources

GitHub CLI

# Search for repos with a specific topic
gh search repos --topic accessibility --limit 20
gh search repos --topic screen-reader --stars ">50"

# Add a topic to your own repository
gh api repos/owner/repo/topics --method PUT --field names[]="accessibility" --field names[]="screen-reader"

8. GitHub Lists — Organizing Your Stars

Lists let you group your starred repositories into named collections — like playlists for code. Instead of one big pile of stars, you can have "Accessibility Tools," "Learning Resources," "Projects I Contribute To," etc.

Creating a list

  1. Go to your stars: github.com/username?tab=stars
  2. Select "Create list" (top right of the stars page)
  3. Give it a name and optional description
  4. Select "Create"

Or create a list while starring:

  1. On a repo page, click the dropdown arrow next to the Star button
  2. Select "Create a list" or add to an existing list

Adding repos to lists

  • From any repo page: Star dropdown → check the list name
  • From your stars page: click the list icon on any starred repo row

Viewing and sharing lists

Your lists are public at github.com/username?tab=stars — anyone can browse them. This is useful for sharing curated resources with your community.

GitHub CLI

# Lists are managed through the GitHub web interface only
# You can view stars via CLI:
gh api user/starred --jq '.[] | {name: .full_name, description: .description}' | head -20

9. Finding Accessible and Inclusive Projects

If you're specifically looking for projects that welcome contributors with disabilities, or that focus on accessibility work, here are the best ways to find them.

Search strategies

# Search for accessibility-focused repos
gh search repos "accessibility" --topic a11y --stars ">100"

# Find repos with good first issues in accessibility
gh search issues "accessibility" --label "good first issue" --state open

# Find issues tagged both "accessibility" and "help wanted"
gh search issues --label "accessibility" --label "help wanted" --state open

On GitHub.com:

Organisations to follow

GitHub organisations are collections of repos grouped by a team or company. You can follow an org to get notified of their public activity.

Notable accessibility-focused organisations on GitHub:

  • github.com/Community-Access — the organisation behind this workshop
  • Search for org:github accessibility to find GitHub's own accessibility work
  • Many assistive technology companies have open source components on GitHub — search for your AT provider

Looking at who your community follows

If you follow someone doing accessibility work, browse their stars and their following list — this is one of the fastest ways to discover the accessibility community on GitHub.

10. Building Your Own Presence

Being visible on GitHub matters when you want to collaborate with others, get hired, or establish yourself as a contributor.

Your contribution graph

The green grid on your profile shows your public contribution activity over the past year. Contributions count when you:

  • Push commits to a public repo
  • Open, comment on, or close issues or PRs in a public repo
  • Review a PR in a public repo

Note: Contributions to private repos only appear as grey squares unless the repo is made public later. Commits only count if they're made with the email address associated with your GitHub account.

Pinning repositories

Pin up to 6 repositories (your own or repos you've contributed to) on your profile:

  1. Go to your profile (github.com/username)
  2. Select "Customize your pins" above the pinned repos section
  3. Check up to 6 repos to pin — prioritise your best work and most active contributions

Your profile README

Create a special repository named exactly the same as your username (github.com/username/username) and its README.md will appear at the top of your profile page. This is your chance to introduce yourself, list your skills, and share what you're working on.

See Appendix R: Profile, Sponsors, and Wikis for a full guide on building a great profile README.

Activity tips

  • Comment thoughtfully on issues — even "I can reproduce this on Windows 11 with NVDA" is a valued contribution that shows on your profile
  • Star generously — it signals your interests and others see it in their feeds
  • Follow people in your area — they often follow back, growing your network organically

11. The GitHub CLI for Social Features

# --- Following ---
gh api user/following/username --method PUT        # Follow someone
gh api user/following/username --method DELETE     # Unfollow
gh api user/following --jq '.[].login'             # List who you follow
gh api user/followers --jq '.[].login'             # List your followers

# --- Stars ---
gh api user/starred/owner/repo --method PUT        # Star a repo
gh api user/starred/owner/repo --method DELETE     # Unstar a repo
gh api user/starred --jq '.[].full_name'           # List your stars

# --- Discovery ---
gh search repos --topic accessibility --limit 20   # Browse by topic
gh search repos --sort stars --order desc --limit 20   # Popular repos
gh search users "accessibility developer" --limit 10   # Find people

# --- Watching ---
gh api repos/owner/repo/subscription \
  --method PUT --field subscribed=true             # Watch a repo
gh api user/subscriptions --jq '.[].full_name'     # List watched repos

12. Screen Reader Navigation Guide

Following a user

  1. Navigate to github.com/username
  2. Press H to jump through headings to find the user's name at the top
  3. Tab forward — the Follow/Following button is within the first few interactive elements after the avatar/bio area
  4. Press Enter or Space to follow; the button label updates to "Following [username]"

Starring a repository

  1. Navigate to any repository page
  2. The Star button is in the repository header, near the Fork button
  3. Press B (NVDA/JAWS) to navigate by button, or Tab through the header
  4. The button is announced as "Star this repository" or "Unstar this repository"
  5. After starring, the button label changes and a count updates

Browsing your stars

  1. Go to github.com/username?tab=stars
  2. Jump to main landmark to skip navigation
  3. Each starred repo is a heading (H3) with a link — navigate with H or 3
  4. Below each heading: description text, language, star count, and list controls

Exploring topics

  1. Go to github.com/topics/accessibility (or any topic)
  2. Jump to main landmark
  3. Repos are listed as article regions with H3 headings
  4. Each entry has: repo name (link), owner, description, language, star count, and a Star button

GitHub Explore and Trending

  1. Go to github.com/explore or github.com/trending
  2. Use H to navigate between sections and repo entries
  3. Trending page has language and time period filter dropdowns near the top — Tab to find them
  4. Each trending repo row has: rank position, repo name (link), description, star count, and "Stars today" count

Related appendices: Appendix R: Profile, Sponsors, and Wikis · Appendix J: Advanced Search · Appendix T: Contributing to Open Source · Appendix AC: GitHub CLI Reference

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