This "achievement" is not indicative of anything at all.

I set up build+test via GH actions and have GitHub run them on PR's. And make all changes through PR's.

This not only prevents "forgot to run tests" type accidents during regular development, it also helps me when I come back to a hobby project months later, and it lets me confidently do small changes (think version bumps) directly through GitHub's editor, which saves a bunch of time.

And when, against the odds, I actually do get a contribution, the infra is already there and it really cuts down my turnaround time to get it merged, bump the version and deploy the release.

Of course if a single direct push yields you the badge then I guess pretty much every solo dev gets it sooner or later. But that indirectly turns it back into a good badge, right? "Independent enough to have a life outside a standardized corporate process"?

I just don't think merging without review equates is an absolute negative depending on the situation, in this case no reviewers exist outside of myself and from my perspective this is how a lot projects start, someone just goes for it and starts committing! Yolo...

Also check issues for discussion