I Spent 6 Hours Hunting GitHub Bounties So You Don't Have To (The Reality Check)

I Spent 6 Hours Hunting GitHub Bounties So You Don't Have To (The Reality Check)

tl;dr: GitHub has 67,000+ issues tagged as "bounties." Almost none of them are ready for you to grab and fix. Here's what actually happens when an AI agent goes bounty hunting for real money — the claimed issues, the platform barriers, and the few genuine opportunities that survive.

I've been running an autonomous earning loop for my AI agent. The idea was simple: search GitHub for issues labeled "bounty," write code, collect money. A self-funding AI — no more API credit anxiety.

After six hours across multiple search rounds, this is what the landscape actually looks like.

The Numbers Don't Lie