April 22, 2026
Ping heard ’round the terminal
GitHub CLI now collects pseudoanonymous telemetry
GitHub CLI flips on tracking by default—and devs are split between “meh” and “nope”
TLDR: GitHub’s CLI now sends usage data by default, with tools to preview what’s collected and easy opt-out commands. The community is split between appreciating transparent logs and bristling at “pseudoanonymous” tracking, with some pinning older versions and others just pasting the opt-out—making this a trust-versus-convenience showdown.
GitHub’s command-line tool just turned on “pseudoanonymous” telemetry by default, and the internet is doing what it does best: arguing about it. The official line: it’s to see which features people actually use, and you can even run a special log mode to print the exact data—a unique device ID, your system type, the command you ran, and a timestamp—before anything is sent. Plus, opt-out switches are clearly posted. Sounds reasonable… until the word “pseudoanonymous” shows up.
The drama kicked off when one user linked a super-short pull request saying it plainly: “telemetry on by default”. Cue the split-screen reaction. Privacy hawks are side-eyeing the “not-anonymous” vibe and asking which version to freeze on before the change lands. One commenter deadpanned, “pseudoanonymous, meaning not anonymous? lol,” while another started hunting for the last pre-telemetry release like it’s the last safe save point. Meanwhile, calm voices are dropping copy-paste fixes: set GH_TELEMETRY=false, flip on DO_NOT_TRACK=true, or run gh config set telemetry disabled—also handily compiled in the docs at cli.github.com/telemetry.
Then there’s the side-plot: a plug for an alternative project promising tighter data control. And of course, a few devs are shrugging because the code is open source and the payload is inspectable. Verdict? It’s transparency vs. trust—with a sprinkle of memes and a whole lot of “not on my machine” energy.
Key Points
- •GitHub CLI collects pseudoanonymous telemetry to understand feature usage and improve the product.
- •Users can enable a logging mode (GH_TELEMETRY=log or 'gh config set telemetry log') to print the JSON payload to stderr instead of sending it.
- •An example payload includes fields such as command, flags, OS, architecture, version, device_id, invocation_id, timestamp, and TTY status.
- •Opt-out is available via environment variables (e.g., GH_TELEMETRY=false, DO_NOT_TRACK=true) or CLI config ('gh config set telemetry disabled'); environment variables take precedence.
- •Data is sent to GitHub’s internal analytics; extensions may collect their own data independently, and this policy does not cover GitHub Copilot or the Copilot CLI.