Stage 2 · Lesson 9 of 9

A GitHub profile README

A lives in a special named exactly the same as your GitHub username. Its README.md file appears at the top of your GitHub profile. Use it as a short introduction: who you are, what you are studying, what you build and how to reach you.

Link to your two or three best projects. Keep it plain and honest. A wall of badges, animated banners and twenty technologies you touched once reads as noise.

Pair it with (the projects you choose to show first), so the profile leads with your best work. and seniors land on this page from your resume and , so update it as your projects grow.

A question to check yourself, an AI practice session and 1 cheat sheet entry come with the full roadmap. Unlock

Resources for this stage

Start with· follow one of these

GitHub repoFree
GitHub Skills: Introduction to GitHub
GitHub · Beginner
Free hands-on exercise: branch, commit, open and merge a pull request in about an hour
CourseFree
The Missing Semester of Your CS Education
MIT · Beginner
MIT lectures on the tools degrees skip; the shell and version control lectures are enough here

Practise

Learn Git Branching
Draws the commit graph as you type, so branches and merges finally make sense
First Contributions
Your first real pull request, on a repository that exists to accept it

Keep handy

Managing Your Profile README (GitHub Docs)
Official steps for the profile README that sits at the top of your GitHub page
Oh Shit, Git!?!
Plain-English fixes for the day a commit, merge or push goes wrong

Also worth your time

Creating a Winning Coding Portfolio to Impress Interviewers (opens in a new tab)Read
How to choose, structure and present projects so a reviewer sees your best work first