# GitHub Scraper - Repos, Stars, Issues & Profiles (`cryptosignals/github-scraper`) Actor

Scrape GitHub repositories, profiles, and issues — extract stars, forks, contributors, README, commit history, and topics. CSV/JSON output. No login.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/cryptosignals/github-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [Web Data Labs](https://apify.com/cryptosignals) (community)
- **Categories:** Developer tools, AI, Lead generation
- **Features:** Limited permissions
- **Stats:** 33 total users, 3 monthly users, 97.9% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

$5.00 / 1,000 result scrapeds

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.

Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md.

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.

Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run.

For examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below.

Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`).

# README

## GitHub Scraper

Extract public data from GitHub — repositories, user profiles, issues, stars, contributors, and more — in a structured format ready for analysis.

### Why Use This Actor?

GitHub is the world's largest code hosting platform, and it is also a rich source of signals for developer relations, recruiting, market intelligence, and open-source research. But the GitHub API has rate limits that make large-scale collection slow and painful.

This actor lets you collect GitHub data at scale without hitting API throttles or writing any code. Run it on demand or on a schedule and get clean, structured output every time.

**Common reasons teams use this actor:**

- Identify active developers and contributors in a specific technology or niche
- Track adoption of open-source tools by watching star growth over time
- Build recruitment pipelines targeting developers with specific language expertise
- Monitor competitor repositories for activity, issues, and community growth
- Research the open-source ecosystem for a category before building or investing

### What Data You Get

#### Repository Fields

| Field | Description |
|-------|-------------|
| `name` | Repository name |
| `fullName` | owner/repo format |
| `description` | Repository description |
| `stars` | Star count |
| `forks` | Fork count |
| `watchers` | Watcher count |
| `language` | Primary programming language |
| `topics` | Repository topic tags |
| `license` | License type |
| `createdAt` | Creation date |
| `updatedAt` | Last update timestamp |
| `openIssues` | Number of open issues |
| `url` | Repository URL |

#### User/Profile Fields

| Field | Description |
|-------|-------------|
| `login` | GitHub username |
| `name` | Display name |
| `bio` | Profile bio |
| `company` | Company listed on profile |
| `location` | Self-reported location |
| `publicRepos` | Number of public repositories |
| `followers` | Follower count |
| `following` | Following count |
| `email` | Public email when the user has listed one (often empty) |
| `blog` | Website/blog URL |
| `joinedAt` | Account creation date |

### Use Cases

#### Developer Recruiting

Search for contributors to repositories in your tech stack. Filter by location, activity level, and language expertise. Export a list of potential candidates with public email when the user has listed one.

#### Open-Source Intelligence

Track how fast a new library is growing. Monitor issue velocity and contributor count as signals of project health. Identify abandoned projects before depending on them.

#### Competitive Research

Watch when a competitor open-sources something. Track their engineering team growth via contributor activity. Benchmark your own repo metrics against the field.

#### Market Research

Count the number of repositories using a specific framework or library. Understand which tools are gaining traction by watching star velocity.

#### Sales Prospecting

Find companies actively using a technology by searching their public repos. Identify engineering leads at target accounts.

### How to Use

1. Open the actor on Apify and click **Try for free**
2. Enter a GitHub search query, username, or repository URL
3. Set your desired result limit and data type (repos, users, issues)
4. Click **Start** and wait for the run to complete
5. Download as JSON, CSV, or stream results via the Apify API

### Input Parameters

| Parameter | Type | Description |
|-----------|------|-------------|
| `searchQuery` | string | GitHub search term (e.g., "machine learning python stars:>1000") |
| `type` | string | Data type: `repositories`, `users`, or `issues` |
| `maxResults` | number | Maximum number of results to return |
| `username` | string | Specific GitHub username to scrape profile/repos for |
| `repoUrl` | string | Specific repository URL to extract data from |
| `includeContributors` | boolean | Whether to include contributor list for repos |

### Sample Output

```json
{
  "name": "awesome-python",
  "fullName": "vinta/awesome-python",
  "description": "A curated list of awesome Python frameworks, libraries, software and resources",
  "stars": 218000,
  "forks": 24500,
  "language": "Python",
  "topics": ["python", "awesome", "awesome-list"],
  "license": "CC-BY-4.0",
  "openIssues": 523,
  "createdAt": "2014-06-27T21:00:06Z",
  "updatedAt": "2026-04-20T12:34:00Z",
  "url": "https://github.com/vinta/awesome-python"
}
```

### Pricing

This actor uses pay-per-event billing — you are only charged for data delivered. There are no upfront fees or minimum commitments. New Apify accounts come with a free tier to test the actor at no cost.

### Frequently Asked Questions

**Does this require a GitHub account or token?**
No. The actor collects publicly available data. No authentication is required from you.

**What are the rate limits?**
The actor handles rate limiting internally. You do not need to manage API quotas yourself.

**Can I scrape private repositories?**
No. Only public GitHub data is accessible and collected.

**Can I get contributor data for a specific repo?**
Yes. Enable the `includeContributors` option when running with a specific repository URL.

**Can I filter results by programming language or stars?**
Yes. Use GitHub's standard search syntax in the `searchQuery` field, such as `language:rust stars:>500`.

**Is scheduling supported?**
Yes. Apify's built-in scheduler lets you run this actor on any cron schedule.

***

*Found this actor useful? [Leave a review](https://apify.com/cryptosignals/github-scraper#reviews) - it helps a lot. Something broken? Report it on the [Issues tab](https://apify.com/cryptosignals/github-scraper/issues).*

# Actor input Schema

## `action` (type: `string`):

What type of data to extract from GitHub.

## `query` (type: `string`):

Search query for repos/users, username for profiles, org name for org-repos, or owner/repo for repo-details.

## `url` (type: `string`):

GitHub URL for user-profile (https://github.com/username), repo-details (https://github.com/owner/repo), or org-repos. Overrides query for these actions.

## `maxItems` (type: `integer`):

Maximum number of results to return. GitHub API limits apply (60 requests/hour without auth).

## `language` (type: `string`):

Filter results by programming language (e.g., python, javascript, rust). Works with search-repos and search-users.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "action": "search-repos",
  "query": "python machine learning",
  "maxItems": 30
}
```

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "action": "search-repos",
    "query": "python machine learning",
    "maxItems": 30
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("cryptosignals/github-scraper").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {
    "action": "search-repos",
    "query": "python machine learning",
    "maxItems": 30,
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("cryptosignals/github-scraper").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "action": "search-repos",
  "query": "python machine learning",
  "maxItems": 30
}' |
apify call cryptosignals/github-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,cryptosignals/github-scraper"
        }
    }
}
```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/tvsXChAsofX0u3XxN/builds/mWwOuYKbfz4QE4Bpg/openapi.json