Animated GitHub contribution snake for your profile README, your repos, and your orgs

Description and use

Automated generation of animated GitHub contribution charts for a repository README and organization page, updated nightly via GitHub Actions.

Problem

GitHub only provides contribution calendars for user accounts, not for repositories or organizations, making it hard to display activity on README or org pages.

Outcome

The repo README now displays an animated snake, heatmap, skyline, and activity summary that update nightly, improving visibility of recent contributions for both users and organizations.

Workflow

• Add a workflow file .github/workflows/readme-showcase.yml that schedules nightly runs and allows manual trigger.
• Run the workflow once from the Actions tab to generate the SVGs and stats.json.
• Commit the generated files to the output branch via the action.
• Update the README to embed the activity SVG with a prefers‑color‑scheme source set for dark mode.
• The workflow continues to update the images nightly, keeping the chart current.

Evidence

GitHub keeps a contribution calendar for user accounts and nothing else. A repository doesn't have one, and neither does an organization.

Source

I wrote github-action-shares, a GitHub Action that builds the calendar itself and draws three animated SVGs from it.

Source

Add the workflow. Save this as .github/workflows/readme-showcase.yml

Source

Run the workflow once. After that the nightly schedule takes over.

Source