Starstruck
Summary
Starstruck is an active, tiered GitHub profile achievement for creating repositories that reach GitHub’s published star milestones.
Trigger
GitHub’s live achievement fragment states that Starstruck recognises an account that created a repository that has many stars. GitHub-owned milestone histories also show that creator attribution can remain visible when the linked repository is currently organization-owned.
Progression and tiers
| Level | Repository stars | Evidence status |
|---|---|---|
| Base | 16 | Official product fragment |
| Bronze | 128 | Official product fragment |
| Silver | 512 | Official product fragment |
| Gold | 4,096 | Official product fragment |
GitHub’s x4 Starstruck detail fragments publish the 16, 128, 512, and 4,096 milestones directly.
Eligibility conditions
- The repository must be attributed by GitHub to the account that created it.
- Stars must represent ordinary independent GitHub star events.
- Current organization ownership does not necessarily erase creator attribution: GitHub currently credits balloob for
home-assistant/coreand tiangolo forfastapi/fastapi. - The exact timing of a transfer relative to milestone processing is not exposed by those fragments.
- Forks, archival, deletion, restoration, falling counts, and award revocation remain incompletely documented.
Award timing
Repository star counts update quickly, but profile-achievement processing may lag. A repository can visibly reach a milestone before the badge or tier refreshes.
Verification
- Open the GitHub-owned Starstruck detail fragment for the account.
- Record the repository linked to each published milestone.
- Confirm the repository’s current owner type and visible star count.
- Preserve the observation date and distinguish current ownership from transfer timing.
- Recheck after processing delay when studying a new milestone or ownership transition.
Evidence status
- Official: GitHub’s product fragment states the creator-based trigger.
- Official: The milestones are 16, 128, 512, and 4,096 stars.
- Observed from GitHub-owned fragments: Creator attribution can persist for repositories currently owned by organizations.
- Unknown: Exact transfer timing, fork treatment, archival, falling counts, deletion, restoration, and award or tier revocation.
Known limitations and edge cases
- A current organization-owned link proves persistence in that observed state, not the exact date or mechanism of transfer.
- Star counts can decrease when users remove stars or accounts are removed.
- A screenshot captures only a point-in-time count.
- Repository transfer, visibility changes, deletion, restoration, or archival can complicate later verification.
- GitHub does not publish a complete revocation contract for falling below a milestone.
Troubleshooting
- Inspect the GitHub-owned achievement history rather than assuming current repository ownership is the only attribution rule.
- Confirm the visible milestone and linked repository.
- Allow time for profile processing.
- Record ownership transitions with dates where available.
- Treat fork, archive, deletion, restoration, falling-count, and revocation behavior as unresolved without reproducible evidence.
Responsible participation
Build useful software or documentation, explain it clearly, and share it with relevant communities. Stars should reflect independent interest rather than coordinated activity created solely to alter an achievement count.
History
Starstruck was introduced with GitHub profile achievements. GitHub’s live x4 fragments now expose the complete milestone sequence and provide first-party creator-attribution examples across personal and organization-owned repositories.
References
- Saving repositories with stars
- GitHub profile reference
- Event-linked evidence
- Official achievement fragment corpus
Last verified
20 July 2026. Scope: first-party trigger and milestone fragments, current organization-owned creator-attribution examples, and the remaining transfer-timing, fork, archival, falling-count, deletion, restoration, and revocation edge cases.