Why were Heart on Your Sleeve and Open Sourcerer achievements briefly re-enabled and then removed again?

[kritishmohapatra]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Question

💬 Feature/Topic Area

Profile

Body

Hi GitHub team and community,

I noticed that the Heart on Your Sleeve and Open Sourcerer achievements appeared briefly on profiles recently, and then were removed again. A maintainer clarified that this was done in error — they were part of an experimental rollout and weren't meant to be re-enabled broadly.

I completely understand that mistakes happen, and I appreciate the transparency. But I'd love to understand a bit more:

• Why have these achievements been in "experimental" status for so long? Is there a plan to officially release them, or are they being permanently discontinued?
• What criteria is being evaluated before a broader rollout?

I wanted to share a personal perspective too — I'm a third-year Electrical Engineering student from a Tier III college in India, actively contributing to open source as part of my #100DaysOfIoT challenge. For someone like me, who doesn't have the brand name of a top-tier institution on their resume, achievements like the Open Sourcerer badge carry real weight. They're a visible, verifiable signal to recruiters and researchers that "this person actually contributes to the community" — not just builds private projects.

When it briefly appeared on my profile, it genuinely felt like recognition for months of work. And I know I'm not alone in feeling this way — a lot of developers from non-elite backgrounds rely on these small but meaningful signals.

I'm not asking for a timeline or a promise — just some clarity on the direction. Even a "we're still figuring it out" would be appreciated more than silence.

Thanks for everything you do for the developer community. 🙏

[Code-Crafter09]

What Actually Happened - and What We Know

Why They Briefly Reappeared

GitHub's official explanation is that the temporary re-instatement was done in error — both badges were part of an experimental rollout and weren't meant to be re-enabled broadly. Once the mistake was identified, they were removed again. This wasn't a deliberate preview or announcement; it was a side effect of a separate fix (GitHub was simultaneously resolving an unrelated bug where all achievements had disappeared from profiles).

---

Why They've Been in "Experimental" Status for So Long

There's no official public statement explaining the delay, but based on what's surfaced across community discussions, a few factors are likely in play:

1. Criteria overlap with existing badges
Open Sourcerer was noted to have criteria nearly identical to the existing Pull Shark badge — both tied to getting PRs merged in public repositories. GitHub may be rethinking differentiation before a public launch.

2. Known planned criteria, but no release gate
GitHub support confirmed the intended criteria: Open Sourcerer requires having PRs merged in multiple public repositories, and Heart on Your Sleeve requires reacting to something on GitHub with a ❤️ emoji. The criteria are decided — the holdup is on the rollout side, not the design side.

3. No public timeline has ever been shared
As of early 2026, the criteria and release date for both badges remain unreleased to users. GitHub has not indicated whether they are being discontinued or simply delayed indefinitely.

---

Is There Hope for a Release?

Realistically: unclear, but not dead. The fact that they keep surfacing in accidental rollouts suggests the backend infrastructure exists and is functional. The most likely scenarios are:

• GitHub is waiting to solve the Pull Shark overlap problem before Open Sourcerer makes sense as a distinct badge
• Heart on Your Sleeve may require additional spam/abuse safeguards before going public (reaction farming is trivially easy)
• Both could be quietly discontinued if GitHub deprioritizes the achievements system overall

---

What You Can Do Right Now

Since there's no release timeline, the best move is to make your open source work visible through other means that are live today:

• Your Pull Shark badge already signals merged PRs - maximize its tiers by continuing cross-repo contributions
• Pin repositories from your #100DaysOfIoT challenge with detailed READMEs
• Link your GitHub contribution graph in your resume/portfolio explicitly
• Contribute to repos with high visibility (starred, actively maintained) - that association itself carries signal

The work you're doing is already verifiable. The badge is just a shortcut - and the shortcut isn't available yet.

---

** GitHub has confirmed it was an error, the criteria are internally decided, but there is no public release date and no explanation for the delay. The most honest answer the community can give is: we don't know when or if these will launch, and GitHub has chosen not to say either.

[aryan6673]

ok so basically github themselves came out and said it was a mistake lol

those two achievements (heart on your sleeve + open sourcerer) were part of an experimental rollout that wasnt supposed to go live for everyone - someone at github accidentally re-enabled them broadly and a bunch of ppl got them for like a few hours before they caught the mistake and pulled them back

so if u woke up one day and saw them on ur profile and then they just vanished - ur not going crazy, that literally happened to a ton of ppl 😭

theyre still in testing/beta rn and github hasnt announced when (or if) theyll fully release them to everyone. keep an eye on the github blog i guess, thats prob where theyll announce it when its actually ready

[itxashancode]

The brief reappearance of Heart on Your Sleeve and Open Sourcerer was confirmed by GitHub staff as an accidental expansion of a limited experimental toggle. This aligns with how GitHub manages experimental profile features: they are staged to small cohorts, monitored for data accuracy and anti-gaming resilience, and rolled back if thresholds aren't finalized or if unintended user segments receive them.

🔍 Why They're Still Experimental

GitHub keeps new achievements in experimental status to calibrate three key areas before a stable release:

• Contribution authenticity: Filtering out automated scripts, merge-bots, or low-signal activity that could artificially inflate badge eligibility
• Longevity vs. volume: Ensuring the criteria reward sustained, meaningful engagement rather than short bursts of activity
• Cross-workflow fairness: Validating that developers using different contribution models (e.g., issue triage, documentation, code review, project infrastructure) have equitable paths to earning the badge

Both badges are designed to recognize consistent, multi-repository impact, which requires careful algorithmic tuning. GitHub hasn't announced a public release date, nor have they confirmed permanent discontinuation. Experimental achievements typically either graduate to stable, receive updated criteria, or are retired if they fail quality or fairness benchmarks.

📏 What's Being Evaluated for Broader Rollout

While exact thresholds aren't public (to prevent metric gaming), GitHub's engineering team generally measures:

• Depth and consistency of merged PRs across organizations
• Long-term issue/discussion participation
• Community maintenance signals (e.g., triage, documentation, security fixes)
• Recency and decay windows to ensure badges reflect active, ongoing contributions

You can track official updates in the GitHub Changelog and the Profile Achievements documentation.

🛠️ Actionable Steps to Maximize Visibility Now

Since you're actively contributing and want recruiters to notice your work, focus on signals that are already visible and verifiable:

1. Track merged impact via GitHub CLI

   gh api users/USERNAME/pulls?state=closed&per_page=100 --jq '.[] | select(.merged_at != null) | {repo: .base.repo.full_name, title: .title, merged: .merged_at}'

   Pin the top 3-5 repos with meaningful merges in your profile README.

2. Leverage profile customization
   Use README.md and pinned repositories to highlight cross-repo contributions, documentation improvements, and community discussions. Recruiters scan these first.

3. Submit feedback directly
   The product team actively reviews community input when recalibrating experimental criteria. Share your experience in the Profile & Achievements discussion category.

Your perspective highlights exactly why GitHub experiments with these badges in the first place: to create equitable, verifiable signals for developers outside traditional hiring pipelines. Keep documenting your #100DaysOfIoT progress publicly. Consistent, traceable contributions will always carry more long-term weight than temporary badge fluctuations.