GitHub unwanted UX change: issue links now open in a popup

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miloush Apr 15, 2026 · 10 comments Return to top Something went wrong.

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miloush Apr 15, 2026

🏷️ Discussion Type

Product Feedback

💬 Feature/Topic Area

Issues

Body

In some repositories, any link to an issue form an issue stared to open in a popup overlay instead of navigating to it.

Is that something that is rolling out gradually? I checked both the changelog and product roadmap but couldn't find any mentions of the new behavior. Is there a way to turn it off or configure? It completely breaks the experience and negatively affects productivity.

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I have read the above statement and can confirm my post is relevant to the GitHub feature areas Issues and/or Projects.

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github-actions[bot] Bot Apr 15, 2026

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dharmab Apr 17, 2026

This really breaks my experience using AI agents! I click an issue link to copy the URL of that issue to paste into an agent, I get the parent issue link instead!

It looks awful too, I thought at first my browser had glitched and there was a rendering error

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Domoninic Apr 17, 2026

Please give us an option to disable this non-standard link behavior. If I click a link it should open and NOT just throw up an overlay.

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ZimbiX Apr 17, 2026

This is ridiculous and really should have been opt-in if done at all. GitHub's quality has eroded since the Microsoft acquisition. Don't baby us - please keep links acting like links.

Edit: Duplicate of https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/192665

Edit 2: I've created a workaround to restore proper link functionality: userscript, installation instructions.

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algesten Apr 18, 2026

I don't want this. It breaks assistive technologies. I want an option to get the old behavior.

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MrSuddenJoy Apr 18, 2026

Wow, that's seriously great work on GitHub's side. It looks outstanding, works amazing, should have been implemented long ago, in fact.

should have been opt-in

@ZimbiX Could have been opt-in. Not should......

keep links acting like links.

@ZimbiX links are still links; you can still right-click > open in new tab.

GitHub's quality has eroded since the Microsoft acquisition.

@ZimbiX 50/50 I guess.... for me and my use case, GitHub progressed. But, again, thats only me.....

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Evidlo Apr 18, 2026

Not a huge fan. It looks weird with the pop-up not centered in the middle and off to the right (FF 149).

Much more intuitive behavior is just supporting mouse-hover over an issue to get a preview, with click/ctrl-click opening the page.

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jlmcdonnell Apr 19, 2026

Please revert this awful behavior. When I click a link on a web browser, I want to go to that link.

At the very least, if you're going to introduce non-standard UX, please provide users with the option to disable it.

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luckman212 Apr 26, 2026

Just another angry user here - please revert this silly feature, or make it opt-in. Terrible UX!

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Phillipus Apr 26, 2026

Another downvote here. This is an annoyance. Please get rid of it.

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