Linguist
Description
Identify the breakdown of programming languages used in a GitHub repository, or the anticipated language of an individual file.
The most well-known output of linguist's process is the language breakdown graph shown on a repository on GitHub documenting the percentage of languages used along with a small chart visualizing that breakdown.
Unlike utilities like DROID, based on PRONOM, which rely on pattern matching to identify, in this case programming language, and thus, file format, GitHub's linguist is deterministic and uses a series of decision making strategies to determine the potential file format.
Algorithm
Linguist uses a number of strategies to reduce the amount of inputs it is dealing with including excluding binary objects and those identified as data before applying a series of identification strategies to try and determine the programming language used across a GitHub repository or an individual file.
Its algorithm is described in more detail on GitHub.
Among its strategies, linguist lists the following checks:
- Vim or Emacs modeline,
- commonly used filename,
- shell shebang,
- file extension,
- XML header,
- man page section,
- heuristics,
- naïve Bayesian classification
User Experiences
- How to add a programming language to GitHub Jake Lee on Software.
- Linguist Discussions on GitHub.
Development Activity
All development activity is visible on GitHub: https://github.com/github-linguist/linguist/commits
Release Feed
Below the last 3 release feeds:
- 2026-03-18 15:09:57
- [tag:github.com,2008:Repository/1725199/v9.5.0 v9.5.0]
- by lildude
- 2026-01-21 10:42:09
- [tag:github.com,2008:Repository/1725199/v9.4.0 v9.4.0]
- by lildude
- 2025-09-18 09:55:02
- [tag:github.com,2008:Repository/1725199/v9.3.0 v9.3.0]
- by lildude
Activity Feed
Below the last 5 commits:
- 2026-05-15 05:22:01
- [tag:github.com,2008:Grit::Commit/08c3c969e8077edd29fa97e3fe0bae1154506968 Mark Julia package manifests (Manifest.toml) as generated (#7960)]
- by ararslan https://github.com/ararslan
- 2026-05-01 14:12:03
- [tag:github.com,2008:Grit::Commit/e535c9adf5306132e9df0b75ffe1ce2679873fe8 Add SpiceDB Schema language support (#7936)]
- by ivanauth https://github.com/ivanauth
- 2026-05-01 09:46:35
- [tag:github.com,2008:Grit::Commit/917e8405bff895642ed7bbd718658b4cdd23df5e Mark mise lockfiles as generated TOML (#7923)]
- by risu729 https://github.com/risu729
- 2026-03-18 15:05:26
- [tag:github.com,2008:Grit::Commit/537297cdae3ab05f8d5dd1c03627a5bd73707b19 Release v9.5.0 (#7858)]
- by lildude https://github.com/lildude
- 2026-03-16 16:55:03
- [tag:github.com,2008:Grit::Commit/cb756ae9b3242a3a5fe2a5934dcfd8c518cf09d5 Add .gitattributes override mention when returning the strategy (#7600)]
- by DecimalTurn https://github.com/DecimalTurn
References
- How Linguist Works on GitHub.
See also
- CLOC (Count Lines of Code) on COPTR.