GitHub degraded worldwide with about 20 percent error rates across web, API, Actions, and authentication

Sources: GitHub Status incident, HN discussion, Ask HN: Alternatives to GitHub
Summary: GitHub opened the incident at 13:40 UTC on 2026-08-17, and it was still open at 16:16 UTC, the last update this run read. GitHub reports about 20 percent error rates for web experiences and API traffic, and about 50 percent for archive downloads and raw repository content downloads. SAML and OIDC authentication, SCIM, and Team Sync are named as impacted, and the affected components listed are Git Operations, Webhooks, API Requests, Issues, Pull Requests, Actions, Pages, and Copilot. GitHub states it is performing mitigations and has published no root cause, which is why this is marked developing. A concurrent Ask HN thread asked for alternatives to GitHub.
Why it matters: Git operations, pull requests, Actions runs, and single sign-on fail together, so a team loses code review, CI, and access to private repositories at the same time and has no in-vendor fallback.
Follow-up: Recheck the status page for the resolution time, the final impact window, and any published root cause.