It’s a fact of life – sometimes repository names change. This can happen in a few different types of scenarios:

  • When you rename a repository.
  • When you rename your user or organization account.
  • When you transfer a repository from one user or organization to another.

We’re happy to announce that starting today, we’ll automatically redirect all requests for previous repository locations to their new home in these circumstances. There’s nothing special you have to do. Just rename away and we’ll take care of the rest.

As a special bonus, we’ll also be servicing all Git clone, fetch, and push requests from previous repository locations.

There is one caveat with the new redirect support worth noting: GitHub Pages sites are not automatically redirected when their repositories are renamed at this time. Renaming a Pages repository will continue to break any existing links to content hosted on the github.io domain or custom domains.