request: Option to specify primary programming language of each repo

[mcandre]

Select Topic Area

Product Feedback

Body

GitHub automatically uses Linguist to assign a programming language description to each repository.

However, this often results in misleading labels.

For example, a Java project that happens to have a high sloccount of JSON fixtures, ends up labelled primarily a "JSON" project.

For example, a Ruby project with a collection of shell scripts for deployment, is mislabelled as a "Shell" project.

For example, a Go project with some cGo third party dependencies tracked in vendor, is mislabelled as "C" or "C++".

For example, a project building Docker images that delegates to shell scripts, in order to lint, SAST, and stylize the provisioning code for safety and security, ends up with a "Shell" label.

Please add a repo level option to override the Linguist project programming language label.

[github-actions[bot]]

💬 Your Product Feedback Has Been Submitted 🎉

Thank you for taking the time to share your insights with us! Your feedback is invaluable as we build a better GitHub experience for all our users.

Here's what you can expect moving forward ⏩

• Your input will be carefully reviewed and cataloged by members of our product teams. 
  • Due to the high volume of submissions, we may not always be able to provide individual responses.
  • Rest assured, your feedback will help chart our course for product improvements.
• Other users may engage with your post, sharing their own perspectives or experiences. 
• GitHub staff may reach out for further clarification or insight. 
  • We may 'Answer' your discussion if there is a current solution, workaround, or roadmap/changelog post related to the feedback.

Where to look to see what's shipping 👀

• Read the Changelog for real-time updates on the latest GitHub features, enhancements, and calls for feedback.
• Explore our Product Roadmap, which details upcoming major releases and initiatives.

What you can do in the meantime 💻

• Upvote and comment on other user feedback Discussions that resonate with you.
• Add more information at any point! Useful details include: use cases, relevant labels, desired outcomes, and any accompanying screenshots.

As a member of the GitHub community, your participation is essential. While we can't promise that every suggestion will be implemented, we want to emphasize that your feedback is instrumental in guiding our decisions and priorities.

Thank you once again for your contribution to making GitHub even better! We're grateful for your ongoing support and collaboration in shaping the future of our platform. ⭐

[itxashancode]

I've run into this too. The current workaround is using a .gitattributes file in your repo root. Add a line like:

*.json linguist-language=Java

Or to mark entire directories as documentation/vendored:

vendor/ linguist-vendored
docs/ linguist-documentation

This tells Linguist to ignore those files when calculating the primary language. For your Java project with JSON fixtures, you'd mark the fixtures/ or *.json paths as linguist-documentation so they don't count toward the language breakdown.

It's not a UI toggle, but it's the official way to override the detection per-repo. You commit this file and GitHub re-analyzes within minutes.

If your issue is with vendor dependencies (like vendor/ in Go), that directory is already automatically marked as vendored by Linguist. If it's still mislabeling, double-check that your vendor/ is at the repo root and not nested, or explicitly add:

vendor/ linguist-vendored

There's no other repo-level setting in GitHub's UI for this yet. The .gitattributes method is what the GitHub staff usually points to for these cases.