I’ve been working on a project called GitHub Messages for the past seven months.

The idea is very specific: develop a messaging platform for GitHub.

A music-sharing platform I used, called Swing Music, had a severe vulnerability allowing users to download any files stored on their device, not just music. I struggled to reach out to the developers, as they had very little contact information on their profile. I instantly committed to reviving my an extension that would facilitate this, called GitHub Messages.
It’s a very unique extension, and relies on the GitHub website to chat with others. Part of why it’s been successful is because you don’t have to leave the website in order to communicate with other developers. The extension adds a “Chat” button, and users don’t even have to create an additional account. I plan on extending this to various other platforms.

Events

I have a bunch of scrapers running that search Google, X, and other platforms for references to my projects. On January 8, 2026, I was alerted to a similar project to mine, called GitHub Chat, created by Akinkunmi.
After taking a look and installing the extension, I realized that the project was almost exactly the same as mine. When I took a look at the code, I saw that the project had only been created on January 3rd, five days before the release date of January 8th. All the code appeared to be AI generated.
This was the second time a project of mine had been plagiarized, and I was very disappointed, especially because I had been working on my project without AI for the past 7 months, from June 2025 to January 2026.

Plagiarism

There was a discussion on X, a platform which I have since abandoned, on whether or not the project had been copied. It is very very unlikely for such a hyperspecific project to be implemented in the exact same way to be a coincidence.

And now we’re defending plagiarism:

And now we’re insulting:

Accusing people of stealing your work when the design is almost a 1:1 replica, the implementation is also almost 1:1, and the idea and marketing phrasing is practically the same, is a very reasonable thing to do.
Here’s what isn’t reasonable:

• Grown adults insulting 17 year olds on twitter (petty…)
• Continuing to defend your plagiarism
• Saying that you “started” your project in October when I gave visual evidence of mine starting in June
• Asking ChatGPT if your project is a good idea (I laughed when I saw this)
• Using AI to build a project you claim you built yourself, in order to infringe on the intellectual property of others
• Getting your friends to reply and defend you
• “Even if he did plagiarize…” - is this a hypothetical or a freudian slip?

Learning outcomes

At school, one of the biggest things we have learned is that every class should have a learning outcome.
Here’s what I learned:

• The build in public movement is very dangerous
• Don’t hype your projects before they’re 100% complete
• Don’t publish an extension, even when unlisted, before you’re ready to release to the world
• Stop what you’re doing and give up, when things aren’t worth the struggle.

Turning comments off because no one wants to be harassed on their own website.