The GitHub CLI now collects and sends pseudonymous telemetry data by default

The GitHub CLI has recently begun sending pseudonymous telemetry data by default. This change was brought to light through user reports and has raised privacy concerns among the community. According to GitHub, the purpose of collecting this data is to help the development team understand how features are adopted, allowing them to prioritize improvements based on actual usage patterns. The company emphasizes that this feedback helps guide their decisions, such as whether to revisit feature designs or focus on enhancing specific areas if usage data highlights demand for certain commands or flags.

To address transparency, GitHub points out that the CLI is open source and that users can inspect the telemetry implementation directly in the cli/cli repository. Additionally, users have the option to enable a log mode using a configuration setting or environment variable. This mode allows them to see exactly what data would be sent without transmitting any information. For those who prefer not to participate in telemetry, an opt-out is provided and can be set through either an environment variable or configuration file.

Despite these measures, some users remain dissatisfied, particularly due to telemetry being enabled by default. On Hacker News, a user ironizes: “I mean, make sense, of course. How else could they possibly know what users want? Run a bug tracker? Use their own software? Have more than one 9 of uptime? /s”