Recurring Glitch: GitHub's Star List Feature Hinders Engineering Productivity

GitHub is a cornerstone for many development workflows, offering features designed to streamline collaboration and personal organization. However, a recent discussion in the GitHub Community highlights a persistent and frustrating bug affecting the "Add this repository to a list" feature for starred repositories. This recurring glitch is proving to be a significant hindrance to effective repository management and, by extension, overall engineering productivity software.

The Recurring Repository List Bug

The issue, initially reported by RedCMD, describes a broken experience when attempting to add a starred repository to a custom list. Users observe UI anomalies such as screen flickering and jumping, followed by the complete failure of the operation. Crucially, the repository is not added to the selected list, and even the 'close' button fails to respond correctly, forcing users to find alternative ways to dismiss the dialog. The original poster also included video evidence of the UI glitches.

What makes this bug particularly noteworthy is its recurring nature. Several community members, including evdcush, ryan-w-s, and TCOTC, quickly pointed out that this isn't a new problem. References were made to previous discussions from months prior (e.g., #179431, #179038, #179124), indicating that the bug has appeared, been fixed, and then resurfaced multiple times. This cyclical pattern underscores a deeper challenge in maintaining the stability of core GitHub features.

Under the Hood: A Technical Glitch

Community member Lippiece provided valuable technical insight into the problem, observing the network requests made when trying to add a repository to a list. The investigation revealed that after selecting a list and closing the dropdown, a POST request is sent to an endpoint like https://github.com/DIYgod/RSSHub/lists. However, the response consistently shows "didStar": false, even when the intention was to add the repository to a list.

The request body captured by Lippiece illustrates the data being sent:

_method: put
authenticity_token: ...
repository_id: 127769231
context: user_list_menu
user_list_menu_dirty: 1

The response confirms the failure:

{
  "didStar": false,
  "didCreate": false,
  "starCount": "41,826"
}

Lippiece also noted that the search functionality for lists appears broken, returning all lists regardless of the search query. The use of an "experimental" flag in the frontend further raised questions about the stability of new GitHub features.

Impact on Developer Workflow and Organization

For developers who rely on GitHub's star lists to organize projects, track interesting repositories, or curate resources, this bug significantly disrupts their workflow. The inability to reliably categorize starred repositories can lead to disorganization, wasted time, and a reduced sense of control over their personalized GitHub experience. This directly impacts personal engineering productivity software usage, as a key organizational tool becomes unreliable.

While GitHub's automated response acknowledged the feedback and outlined their process for reviewing submissions, the community's frustration stems from the bug's recurrence. It highlights the importance of robust testing and regression prevention for features that are integral to user experience and developer efficiency.

As the GitHub team works to address this issue (again), the discussion serves as a reminder of how even seemingly minor UI bugs can have a ripple effect on developer productivity and satisfaction. Users are encouraged to continue reporting issues and providing detailed context to help accelerate resolution.