GitHub Global Outage
GitHub Experiences Major Global Outage Affecting Core Development Services Worldwide
Key Points
Copilot was added to the list of affected services soon after the initial wave of degradation, indicating the outage’s expanding impact beyond core version-controlled features.
Some GitHub components remained operational while others degraded; Git Operations, Packages, Pages, and Codespaces were still listed as operational during the outage.
Enterprise authentication services were affected, with SAML and OIDC authentication also impacted, and additional provisioning services like SCIM and Team Sync affected as well.
Downdetector data broken out by region (India) showed the website as the dominant problem, with about 79% of reports related to the website, 13% to the app, and 8% to login.
Microsoft publicly acknowledged the outage, with reports of around 20% error rates for web and API traffic and about 50% error rates for archive downloads, as reflected in official status updates.
GitHub went down on August 17, 2026, hitting developers and companies worldwide with a sweeping outage that took out core services all at once. Neowin reported that Microsoft confirmed the disruption, noting error rates of around 20% for web and API traffic — and roughly 50% for archive and raw file downloads.
The outage began around 13:40 UTC and quickly spread. Pull Requests, Issues, Actions, Webhooks, Copilot, and enterprise login services all degraded. Cybersecurity News reported that over 10,000 users flagged problems within hours, with reports coming in from the US, India, and beyond.
Which Services Failed and Which Survived
The outage hit GitHub's most-used tools hard. Pull Requests, Issues, Actions, Webhooks, and the API all showed degraded performance. Copilot — GitHub's AI coding assistant — was added to the affected list around 14:31 UTC, according to TechEdt, expanding the outage into AI-powered workflows.
Not everything broke. Git Operations, Packages, Pages, and Codespaces stayed operational throughout the incident. Still, the core tools that developers use to review code, run automated tests, and call the API were all struggling at the same time.
Enterprise Login Systems Hit by Authentication Failures
The outage reached beyond individual developers. Enterprise authentication systems — including SAML and OIDC — were also impacted. SAML and OIDC are the standard methods companies use to let employees log in through their own identity providers. When they fail, entire teams can lose access.
Related services like SCIM and Team Sync were hit too, according to Cybersecurity News. SCIM handles automatic user account creation and removal. Team Sync links GitHub teams to company directories. Together, these failures made it harder for IT teams to manage access during the outage.
Downdetector Data Shows Scale of User Reports
SQ Magazine reported that Downdetector logged over 3,000 user reports as the outage spread. In India, the breakdown was clear: about 79% of reports pointed to the website, 13% to the mobile app, and 8% to login issues. The pattern shows the web experience was the biggest pain point for most users.
GV Wire noted that reports climbed past 10,000 by 8:12 a.m. PT. Downdetector tracks outages by collecting user-submitted reports in real time, giving a ground-level view of how widespread a disruption is before companies issue official statements.
No Root Cause Disclosed as Microsoft Investigates
Microsoft said it is investigating and working on mitigations, but has not explained what caused the outage. Neowin reported that the company initially flagged high error rates, then watched as services continued to degrade. No timeline for a fix has been shared publicly.
The incident highlights how much modern software development depends on a single platform. When GitHub's API, CI/CD pipelines, and authentication systems all fail together, automated builds stop, code reviews stall, and deployments freeze. Updates are still coming from GitHub's status page as the outage continues to unfold.
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