Linguist
From time to time we get requests asking us to add support for new highlighting lexers, recognize additional extensions as certain languages, or ignore a directory from a repo’s stats…

From time to time we get requests asking us to add support for new highlighting lexers, recognize additional extensions as certain languages, or ignore a directory from a repo’s stats graph.
The code for these concerns was scattered around the app. I decided to unify and package them all up into a single library. Now it’s open source.
So if you notice an unrecognized extension or you’re really into some obscure language that isn’t supported yet, now is your chance to help contribute back.
https://github.com/github/linguist
Written by
Related posts
GitHub availability report: January 2026
In January, we experienced two incidents that resulted in degraded performance across GitHub services.
Pick your agent: Use Claude and Codex on Agent HQ
Claude by Anthropic and OpenAI Codex are now available in public preview on GitHub and VS Code with a Copilot Pro+ or Copilot Enterprise subscription. Here’s what you need to know and how to get started today.
What the fastest-growing tools reveal about how software is being built
What languages are growing fastest, and why? What about the projects that people are interested in the most? Where are new developers cutting their teeth? Let’s take a look at Octoverse data to find out.