Why everything should have a URL
When knowledge lives in people's heads and inboxes, it doesn't scale. Giving decisions and processes URLs makes context discoverable, asynchronous, and opt-in.
When knowledge lives in people's heads and inboxes, it doesn't scale. Giving decisions and processes URLs makes context discoverable, asynchronous, and opt-in.
Async is what makes remote work actually work. It produces better outcomes, improves work-life balance, and unlocks flow—by evolving beyond Cold War-era workflows.
Open source isn't a fad—it's how modern organizations build software. Here are twenty-five economic, moral, and personal reasons your organization should embrace it.
Great leaders don't just communicate what decision was made—they explain how and why. Without that context, every top-down decision sounds like "because I said so."
If issues, pull requests, and project boards are the best way to develop software, should they not also be the best way to manage software development?
Most meetings are just information downloads that could've been a doc. Treat meetings as a point of escalation based on complexity, not the default starting point.
What if we applied open source's most famous metaphor to people management? Cathedral managers control and direct; bazaar managers empower and facilitate. Knowing which style fits your team matters.
In Toyota's production system, anyone can stop the line when they spot a problem. Transparent collaboration brings that same principle to knowledge work—catching issues before they compound.
Async communication is like gzip compression for humans—more upfront processing, but greater throughput with fewer packets. Less time talking about the work, more time doing it.
AI agents that write code, open pull requests, and fix bugs aren't replacing developers — they're extending the same patterns of transparency, code review, and collaboration that have made open source successful for decades.
When I joined GitHub in 2013, I found a company that had fundamentally rethought how work happens. Thirteen years later, the lessons from that experiment are more relevant than ever.
How to set up LanguageTool, a free and open-source grammar checker, to run locally on your Mac so nothing you type ever leaves your computer. No Grammarly subscription required.
Trying to control the narrative by silencing dissent erodes trust, invites negativity, and stifles learning. The best leaders embrace transparency, openness, and accountability instead.
What if we applied open source's most famous metaphor to people management? Cathedral managers control and direct; bazaar managers empower and facilitate. Knowing which style fits your team matters.
Learn more about how we use GitHub to build GitHub, how we turned our guiding communications principles into prescriptive practices to manage our internal communications signal-to-noise ratio, and how you can contribute to the ongoing conversation.
In Toyota's production system, anyone can stop the line when they spot a problem. Transparent collaboration brings that same principle to knowledge work—catching issues before they compound.
Async communication is like gzip compression for humans—more upfront processing, but greater throughput with fewer packets. Less time talking about the work, more time doing it.
Pull requests capture not just what changed, but who, why, and what alternatives were considered. Treat every PR as a time capsule for future contributors.
Small scheduling choices — like writing dates unambiguously, including time zones, and building in breaks — go a long way toward making distributed teams feel inclusive.
Most meetings are just information downloads that could've been a doc. Treat meetings as a point of escalation based on complexity, not the default starting point.
GitHub isn't just for developers. If you're in a non-technical role, this guide covers everything you need to follow along, collaborate, track work, and get started with confidence.
A battle-tested template for handing off your responsibilities before extended leave, so your team stays unblocked and nothing falls through the cracks.
If issues, pull requests, and project boards are the best way to develop software, should they not also be the best way to manage software development?
How to build 404 pages for Jekyll and GitHub Pages that automatically suggest similar URLs to the one requested, using Levenshtein distance and your sitemap.
Async is what makes remote work actually work. It produces better outcomes, improves work-life balance, and unlocks flow—by evolving beyond Cold War-era workflows.
The Chief of Staff role is poorly understood and hard to define. Here are the seven core responsibilities, from tactical office management to strategic advising, that make the role indispensable.
Great leaders don't just communicate what decision was made—they explain how and why. Without that context, every top-down decision sounds like "because I said so."
A customizable GitHub Actions workflow that uses cURL, jq, and Twilio to notify you via text message when a web page or API response changes.
How I used Docker Compose, Ansible, and Caddy to re-over-engineer my home network setup for easier maintenance, treating my Raspberry Pi like cattle, not a pet.
A four-part series on managing open source at scale, from setting contributors up for success and automating workflows to governance and conversation moderation.
How to keep open source discussions productive by establishing codes of conduct, enabling community reporting, and using tiered moderation tools to de-escalate conflict.
Practical steps for governing your growing open source project, from org-owned repos and enforcing 2FA to the triage role and appointing community managers.
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