Contribution calendar year switch triggers full page reload and pollutes browser history

[kami123kaze]

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Bug

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Contribution Graph UX Bug — Page Reload & History Pollution

Hey folks,

I noticed a minor UX issue on the GitHub profile contribution calendar when switching between years (e.g., 2025 → 2024 → 2023).

What Happens:

• Each year click causes a full page reload.
• A new browser history entry is created.
• You need to hit the back button multiple times to leave the profile page.
• This is inconvenient, especially when reviewing past contributions year-by-year.

Why This Might Be Suboptimal:

The year switch is a purely visual, internal change on the same profile. Reloading the entire page and polluting browser history breaks the smoothness of a single-page experience.

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Steps to Reproduce

1. Go to any GitHub profile with multiple years of contributions.
2. Scroll down to the contribution graph.
3. Click to switch between years (e.g., 2025 → 2024 → 2023).
4. Press the browser back button.
5. Notice that you have to press it multiple times to go back — each year added a new entry to the history stack.
6. Also notice the page reloads completely on every year switch.

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Demo with Expected Behavior

I built a small demo showing how this behavior could be improved with internal state navigation:

GitHub Year Switch UX Demo

It uses React + GitHub GraphQL API to demonstrate:

• Seamless year switching
• No page reloads
• No browser history pollution

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Let me know if this makes sense — I’d love to help refine this further if it’s something worth addressing!

— Divyansh

[github-actions[bot]]

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[kami123kaze]

Thanks so much, Oscar — really appreciate your thoughtful response!

It’s a small fix, but I think these kinds of details really shape how people experience a platform. If you feel others might find it interesting or useful, feel free to share it — every bit of visibility helps.

Glad to know I’m not the only one who noticed it