GitHub Reports Surge in Developer Activity and Agent Adoption

What happened

GitHub reported a significant increase in developer activity, with 17.9 billion code pushes recorded in the past 12 months, surpassing the combined total of the previous two years. This marks a notable rise in the frequency of contributions to the platform.

The total number of commits across all repositories rose to 34.3 billion in the same period, more than triple the level from two years ago. Merged pull requests also saw a substantial increase, reaching over 1.3 billion, averaging 3.5 million per day.

Why it matters

The growth in developer activity signals a shift toward more efficient and automated workflows, with agents playing a central role. These tools are helping developers streamline their processes and maintain consistent progress over time.

Key details

Repositories using agent configurations saw an average of eight times more commits than those without. As of September 2026, over 40% of pull requests began with an agent, up from 17% in March.

GitHub Copilot users also showed increased model diversity, with 61% using more than one model. Public repositories in industries like healthcare and agriculture have seen significant growth since 2022.