Shields

About Shields

Shields is a badge-generation service for displaying project metrics and status indicators, commonly used in README files and documentation. It provides dynamic badges that pull data from hundreds of supported services, as well as static badges for fixed labels and values.

The service offers multiple ways to generate badges: a hosted API, an NPM library (badge-maker) for rendering badges within an application, and a Docker image for running a self-hosted instance behind a firewall. It also provides an endpoint badge format for custom data sources.

Shields is aimed at software developers and open-source maintainers who want to display consistent, legible badges on their project pages or repositories. The project maintains community channels on GitHub, Open Collective, and Discord, and publishes service status and metrics dashboards.

Key features

• Dynamic badges showing live metrics for hundreds of services
• Static badge creation via the Badge-Maker library
• Badge-Maker NPM library for rendering badges in your own application
• Self-hostable via Docker image for use behind a firewall

Frequently asked questions