How To Create GitHub Avatars For Pairs

Jessie Young

Whether you love or hate pairing, we can all agree that attributing work to both pair partners is a pain. Enter: The Easiest Solution Possible™.

Step 1: Create a commit with both of your names

Before you merge your commit, run the following:

git commit --amend --author="Jessie and Joel <jessie+joel@thoughtbot.com>"

Using my username, then “+” and any text (like “jessie+any-ignored-text@thoughtbot.com”) is valid for Google Apps (read more here).

Once you have changed the author of your commit, you can push it to GitHub.

Step 2: Add the email address you created above to your Gravatar account

GitHub uses Gravatar to display user avatars, so you should already have a Gravatar account. Sign into your account, go to the upper righthand corner, and click ‘add an email address’ to add the email address from Step 1.

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Step 3: Create a pair avatar

If you’re using a Mac, Photo Booth is an easy way to snap a quick picture of you and your pair. If you want to get a little more creative, PhotoFunia’s Face swap is a good choice. Here is my face swapped with Joel’s:

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Step 4: Add your new image to Gravatar

Go back to Gravatar and click ‘add a new image’ to upload your new pair avatar. Gravatar will ask you where you would like to use this image. Select the email address you added in Step 2.

Now your commit will go from this:

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To this:

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What’s next

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