Set your own project avatars

The update replaces Vercel’s automatic avatar selection with a manual option that can be configured in the project settings or through the REST API. Previously, the service derived the avatar directly from the favicon found in the project’s production deployment. This automatic behavior remains the default when no custom avatar is chosen. The change gives users explicit control over the image that represents a project.

Adopting the new capability requires either navigating to the dashboard settings for a project or preparing an image file and posting it via the REST API. No modifications to application code or build pipelines are needed, but the user must allocate time to choose or create the avatar. Teams that manage many projects may need to establish a process for maintaining consistent avatar assets.

If a project does not have a custom avatar and also lacks a favicon in its production deployment, the fallback mechanism has no image to use, resulting in no avatar being displayed. Similarly, microfrontend projects that continue to rely on the shared favicon will appear identical unless an avatar is set manually. Thus the feature only improves visibility when an avatar is explicitly provided.

When a custom avatar is set, it appears in the Vercel dashboard alongside each project’s name and in comments made by the Vercel bot on linked GitHub repositories. This uniform rendering helps engineers quickly identify projects across both platforms without inspecting URLs or metadata. The visual cue persists as long as the avatar remains configured in the project’s settings.