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GitHub 8-Hour Outage Caused by Autoscaling Failure and VS Code Retry Storm

  1. Investigating(current)
  2. Trending(upcoming)
  3. Workaround available(upcoming)
  4. Resolved(upcoming)

Executive summary

GitHub experienced an 8-hour outage on August 17, 2026, which has been attributed to an autoscaling failure compounded by a retry storm from VS Code clients. Developers and organizations faced significant service disruptions during the incident window.

No verified workaround yet

None of the linked reports describe a mitigation. Follow this incident to hear when one appears.

Technical root cause

An autoscaling failure triggered a retry storm originating from VS Code clients.

Evidence

6 reports · 5 HN, 1 LobstersShow
  1. [1]
    Lobsters First report
    Incident Report for GitHub outage on 2026-08-17(opens Lobste.rs thread in a new tab)

    by rrampage 11upvotes 7comments

  2. [2]
    HN
    GitHub blames 8-hour outage on autoscaling fail and VS Code retry storm(opens Hacker News thread in a new tab)

    by stevehipwell 1upvotes 0comments90% match

  3. [3]
    HN
    GitHub blames 8-hour outage on autoscaling fail and VS Code retry storm(opens Hacker News thread in a new tab)

    by Bender 2upvotes 0comments97% match

  4. [4]
    HN
    The August 17 outage(opens Hacker News thread in a new tab)

    by 0xedb 643upvotes 755comments93% match

  5. [5]
    HN
    GitHub Outages Show the Limits of Reactive Scaling(opens Hacker News thread in a new tab)

    by rjpruitt16 3upvotes 0comments91% match

  6. [6]
    HN
    GitHub blames 8-hour outage on autoscaling fail(opens Hacker News thread in a new tab)

    by indigodaddy 2upvotes 4comments97% match

Timeline

  1. First report on Lobste.rs thread

    Incident Report for GitHub outage on 2026-08-17

    Source
  2. Confirmed on Hacker News thread

    GitHub blames 8-hour outage on autoscaling fail and VS Code retry storm

    Source