/ˈɡɪt.hʌb/ — GitHub is a web-based platform for version control and collaborative software development. It allows developers to store, manage, and track changes in code, as well as collaborate on projects through features like repositories, pull requests, and issue tracking.
Built on top of Git, the distributed version control system created by Linus Torvalds in 2005, GitHub adds a visual interface, social features, and cloud hosting that make Git accessible to individuals and teams of all sizes. Since its founding in 2008 and subsequent acquisition by Microsoft in 2018, GitHub has grown to host over 200 million repositories and serves as the de facto home for open-source software development worldwide.
Key features include branching and merging workflows, code review through pull requests, automated CI/CD pipelines via GitHub Actions, project management with Issues and Projects, and GitHub Pages for static site hosting. For development teams, GitHub provides the infrastructure for managing codebases of any scale — from a solo developer's side project to enterprise applications maintained by thousands of contributors.
