UNIVERSE ’26
Niche GitHub facts
you didn’t know
existed.
Big numbers. A tiny game.
And a new way to tell people what you shipped.
Three things that caught our eye at GitHub Universe. Here are the numbers from the stage, the little Easter egg hiding in the Copilot app, and a useful idea for your next feature launch.
The scale is a little wild.
developers on GitHub
That’s GitHub’s reported community size in Octoverse 2026. The “+” means more than 225 million in total.
Read Octoverse 2026 (opens in a new tab)
One month. These numbers.
AS SHOWN AT UNIVERSE ’26Commits
in September 2026 · saved snapshots of code changes
GitHub engineering report (opens in a new tab)
45.4 billion Actions jobs.
GitHub Actions runs tasks such as tests and builds. The keynote compared these job counts across three reporting years:
Exact counts from the slide. Octoverse corroborates the rounded totals: 8.0B, 14.0B, and 45.4B. Each reporting year covers the 12 months ending September 30, across public and private repositories.
Check the reporting period (opens in a new tab)
There’s a game hiding
in the Copilot app.
Yes, the little Octocat has somewhere to be.
The Copilot desktop app has a Mona mini-game. Our keynote photo catches her mid-jump between platforms. Microsoft’s Build keynote transcript also confirms the Easter egg: Cassidy Williams demonstrated dragging Mona on the app’s home screen.
- Open the GitHub Copilot app.Go to its Home screen and look for Mona, the Octocat mascot.
- Try dragging Mona.That’s the interaction described in the official demo. Follow the game’s on-screen controls in your version of the app.
- Enjoy a tiny detour.This is an app Easter egg; the entry point can change between versions.
Ship a feature.
Make the promo, too.
A new feature can become the starting point for a marketing video.
GitHub explicitly lists creating a promo video whenever a feature lands as a use case for project automations. Give a project the product context, assets, and tools, then ask it to repeat the workflow.
On stage, the café demo showed a cafe-rewards-promo.mp4 preview with a 12-second timeline. It’s a useful example of the output. The screenshot doesn’t establish the trigger or the renderer used.
Set up your first one.
A suggested workflow to adapt to your product:
- Create a focused project.In the Copilot app, use the + beside Projects. Add your repository and describe the launch work you want it to handle.
- Give it real material.Add release notes, screenshots, your logo, and brand guidance to Library. Link a feature that has shipped.
- Make one video first.Ask for a short promo and confirm the available rendering tools. Review the result before turning it into a recurring task.
- Define when it should run.Ask for a promo when a feature lands. Confirm the supported trigger or checking schedule in Automations. For a repository automation using “pull request closed,” require a merged PR; a closed PR alone doesn’t mean a shipped feature.
- Keep the output reviewable.Check the product behavior, captions, and export. Choose the necessary tools and usage limits, then keep publishing as a separate review step.
Help me create a repeatable promo-video workflow for [product] in [repository]. Start with one merged, released feature: [PR or release link]. Read its description, the relevant code, and the approved screenshots and brand assets in this project's Library. Confirm which video-rendering tools are available before starting. Create a 15-second vertical MP4: a clear opening benefit, a short demo of the real feature, and one call to action. Use readable captions. Only show behavior that has shipped. Return the video and a draft social caption for my review. If a renderer or assets are missing, return a storyboard and tell me what is needed. Once the first video is approved, help configure recurring work for newly shipped features labelled release-video. Confirm the trigger or checking schedule, repository, required tools, and usage limits. Skip closed-but-unmerged PRs, unreleased features, and anything already processed. Save each video as a draft for review before publishing.
This is our starter brief, not a preinstalled template. Video creation depends on the tools and assets available to the project. Repository Copilot Automations require a supported paid Copilot plan and write access; project features are in preview.