Video uploads now available across GitHub

As developers, the ability to collaborate through video (for example, pair programming, demos, etc.) is an extremely important part of a software workflow, especially for communities and teams that are distributed. At GitHub, we’ve utilized video to more concisely detail complex workflows, show our teammates where we’re blocked, and inspire our colleagues with the next big idea.

Today, we’re announcing that the ability to upload video is generally available for everyone across GitHub. Now you can upload .mp4 and .mov files in issues, pull requests, discussions, and more.

With this move out of Beta, we wanted to share some ways in which we’re seeing developers utilize video in their workflows.

Help a maintainer reproduce a bug

Bugs are something that every developer deals with, but sometimes words aren’t enough to help someone else reproduce the problem quickly. This is especially critical for maintainers, who are often burdened with bug reports that require significant back and forth with the user to get to the root of the issue. By enabling users to upload videos, we’ve seen the ability to visually reproduce the way in which a collaborator came across a bug significantly decrease the time spent for a maintainer to try and reproduce from text.

Provide context on pull requests for reviewers

There’s a lot of context about requirements, architecture decisions, and more captured on GitHub in issues and pull requests. As your team grows and plans to evolve, it can be tough for reviewers to understand what they are reviewing and why. We have seen developers utilize video to share more details about complex code changes with colleagues by providing video code walkthroughs, demos of functionality, and other important context to maximize their review feedback.

Share how a feature might take shape

When it comes to developing a new feature or product, a thoughtfully worded proposal or static designs are great, but often lack the ability to really convey the end-to-end user workflows and interactions. Sharing videos of prototype walkthroughs or providing talk tracks for a static design have also helped development teams get to the heart of what they are setting out to build and why so they can get others excited about their work and ultimately build a better product for their own users.

…and upload your video from anywhere!

No feature is truly complete until there is mobile support as well. So we’re also excited to announce that uploading videos from both the iOS and Android GitHub mobile apps is now available to all users. This is especially great for mobile developers who can now record a video of a mobile bug and upload it straight to an issue all from the same device.

Do more with video

We’re excited to see the unique ways you use video in your workflows across GitHub. We hope you will start to bring video into your day-to-day through services you already use, like Loom and Vimeo Record to share project context, provide code review feedback, and share launch updates through free screen and webcam recording. This is just a first step in bringing video into software development across GitHub, and we’re looking to explore more use cases, like video unfurling from links and video annotations in code with Loom, Vimeo, and others to create a richer video experience.

Let us know how video has helped you and your teams be more successful on GitHub and ways we could make the experience even better.

Written by

Lauren Brose

@labrose