How are commits counted by the GitHub contributions graph?

GitHub has an article about this on their site. See Why are my contributions not showing up on my profile? Regarding commits, the article says:

Commits

Commits will appear on your contributions graph if they meet all of the following conditions:

• The commits were made within the past year.
• The email address used for the commits is associated with your GitHub account.
• The commits were made in a standalone repository, not a fork.
• The commits were made:
  • In the repository's default branch (usually master)
  • In the gh-pages branch (for repositories with Project Pages sites)

In addition, at least one of the following must be true:

• You are a collaborator on the repository or are a member of the organization that owns the repository.
• You have forked the repository.
• You have opened a pull request or issue in the repository.
• You have starred the repository.

You can associate multiple email addresses with your GitHub account from your email settings page.

Make sure setting your email in local configuration.

git config --global user.name "kimcrab"
git config --global user.email "[email protected]"