You can commit images into your repo, but that bloats every clone and ties your images to your git history. Hosting them externally and linking keeps the repo lean and lets you swap an image without a commit — as long as you host somewhere fast that allows hotlinking.
The quickest path
- Upload the image (free, no account) at swiftimg.com/upload.
- Copy the direct link from the share box.
- Drop it into your README with Markdown:
Want it clickable (e.g. to open the full-size image or your site)? Use HTML, which GitHub Markdown supports:
<a href="https://swiftimg.com/i/9fK2">
<img src="https://i.swiftimg.com/variants/9fK2/display.webp"
alt="Build status dashboard" width="600" />
</a>Why not hotlink from anywhere?
- Some hosts block cross-site requests → broken images in your README. swiftimg serves assets with permissive caching so they render anywhere.
- Embed the optimized variant (the
displayWebP), not a 10 MB original, so the page stays fast. - URLs are immutable and globally cached, so a README you publish today keeps working and loads in milliseconds worldwide.
- Always set meaningful
alttext — it shows if the image fails and helps search/accessibility.
Doing this across a lot of repos? The swiftimg CLI lets you swiftimg upload diagram.png and paste the link without leaving your terminal.