# Chris Wanstrath (slim)

> Chris Wanstrath is co-founder of GitHub. GitHub Copilot CLI on Anchor Terminal, with grades, an about and public profiles.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/people/chris-wanstrath/index.md (~800 tokens) · this version ~530 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/people/chris-wanstrath/index.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/people/chris-wanstrath/
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp · Updated: 2026-10-27
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)

Co-founder, GitHub.

Chris Wanstrath co-founded GitHub in 2008 and was its chief executive until 2012 and again from 2014 to October 2018, the year Microsoft acquired it.

## What Chris builds

- [GitHub Copilot CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/github-copilot-cli.md), graded C, 58.3/100, in Agent harnesses. GitHub's coding agent for the terminal, built on the same agent harness as Copilot cloud agent (formerly Copilot coding agent), which works in GitHub Actions and opens pull requests. Co-founder, GitHub, researched 2026-10-27.

## Works with

- [P. J. Hyett](https://www.anchorterminal.com/people/p-j-hyett/), Co-founder, GitHub
- [Scott Chacon](https://www.anchorterminal.com/people/scott-chacon/), Co-founder, GitHub
- [Tom Preston-Werner](https://www.anchorterminal.com/people/tom-preston-werner/), Co-founder, GitHub

## Questions

### Who is Chris Wanstrath?

Chris Wanstrath co-founded GitHub in 2008 and was its chief executive until 2012 and again from 2014 to October 2018, the year Microsoft acquired it.

### What does GitHub (Microsoft) make?

Anchor Terminal lists GitHub Copilot CLI from GitHub (Microsoft).

### How are Chris's tools graded?

GitHub Copilot CLI is graded C, 58.3 out of 100, on Anchor Terminal's benchmark, which scores every listing against the same checklist.

## Sources

- https://docs.github.com/en/copilot/concepts/agents/about-copilot-cli
- https://github.blog/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GitHub
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Preston-Werner
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Wanstrath
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P._J._Hyett

These are the people building the tools we list, named for their public role in the company or project behind a listing, from public pages, with the date it was researched.