GitHub now lets devs generate pretty skins for their project pages

Developers, GitHub just gave your code repositories a fresh new coat of sexy.

Today, the startup rolled out the GitHub Page Generator, which will let you select a theme and instantly publish a page for any GitHub project. This makes it easier and faster than ever for you to get your project, be it a simple, one-off tool or a complex framework, boxed up and shipped out to the waiting world — a world that cares more and more about design, communication, and presentation. Like it or not, a good-looking face on a new project can constitute a competitive advantage, and GitHub just gave developers the equivalent of a MAC makeup kit.

As relatively new GitHubber Jake Boxer writes on the company blog, “Ever pushed a new project to GitHub and wished you had the time or talent to make a beautiful page for it? Stop wishing. We’re proud to present the new GitHub Page Generator.”

Any GitHub user can try the page generator out by clicking the Automatic Page Generator button on the admin page of a repository. So far, eight pre-made themes are available, and more should be coming pretty soon. Design-wise, the pages feel in line with other modern websites for code projects.

Here’s a taste of the new auto-generated page possibilities:

The Page Generator is the product of one Jason Costello, a GitHub designer since April 2011. Page content is authored in Markdown, and many of the generator themes are responsive and include mobile-optimized layouts, as well.

Github Pages themselves are hosted free of charge and published straight from GitHub.com, from the GitHub Mac app, or from the command line. Content for the pages can be managed from one’s GitHub account.

Image courtesy of olly, Shutterstock