Follow lists move behind the velvet rope
The followers, following, and mutuals lists behind every profile now ask for GitHub sign-in, on the web and in the API. Commit search joins them, while developer search stays open to everyone.
Top storyTook the lead from Member roll call arrives in organization settings #1304. To stop scrapers, follower, following, and mutual lists now require GitHub sign-in, unsigned API calls fail, and commit search is members-only.
You open a profile and click the follower count. Instead of names, you get GitHub's sign-in page. The count still shows, and the profile still reads fine, but the list behind it now waits for a member. Signed in, it opens as before. It shows 30 people a page, newest follow first.
Credit goes to mnapoli, who put the follow graph behind sign-in so scrapers cannot walk it page by page. Followers, following, and mutuals all need a session now. The API's follower and following endpoints moved behind signed requests too, so an unsigned call gets a 401. Commit search is members-only as well, at 15 searches a minute per person, since each query pays for an embedding and an AI relevance check. In the search box, guests still find developers. A topic query offers a Sign in to search commits row instead.
One wrinkle. Clicking a follower count as a guest sends you to sign-in, but the link points at the plain login page, not the list, so nothing remembers where you were headed. After GitHub, you land on your own log, not the followers you meant to read.