GitHub Scraper — Repositories & User Profiles, Stars, Topics & Leads

Search GitHub and scrape repositories (stars, forks, language, topics, license, dates) or user profiles (name, company, location, bio, followers, public email, repos) into clean, structured JSON. It uses the official GitHub REST API and works out of the box with no login — add an optional token for higher rate limits. Built for developer lead generation, open-source research and technical recruiting.

Features

• 🔀 Two modes — search repositories or users with the same powerful GitHub query syntax.
• 🔎 Full query power — use qualifiers like stars:>10000 language:typescript or location:berlin followers:>500.
• ⭐ Repo metrics — stars, forks, watchers, openIssues, language, topics, license and activity dates.
• 👤 Profile enrichment — optionally fetch each user's full profile for email, company, followers and bio.
• ↕️ Sort & order — sort repos by stars/forks/updated or users by followers/repositories/joined, ascending or descending.
• 🔑 Optional token — supply a personal access token for ~5000 requests/hour instead of unauthenticated limits.
• ⚙️ Reliable by design — respects rate-limit resets and retries on 403/429 so large runs complete cleanly.

What you get

Repository mode returns one clean JSON record per repo:

{
  "type": "repository",
  "id": 20929025,
  "name": "TypeScript",
  "fullName": "microsoft/TypeScript",
  "owner": "microsoft",
  "ownerType": "Organization",
  "description": "TypeScript is a superset of JavaScript that compiles to clean JavaScript output.",
  "url": "https://github.com/microsoft/TypeScript",
  "homepage": "https://www.typescriptlang.org",
  "stars": 99123,
  "forks": 12987,
  "watchers": 99123,
  "openIssues": 5721,
  "language": "TypeScript",
  "topics": ["typescript", "javascript", "compiler"],
  "license": "Apache-2.0",
  "isFork": false,
  "isArchived": false,
  "size": 1234567,
  "defaultBranch": "main",
  "createdAt": "2014-06-17T15:28:39Z",
  "updatedAt": "2024-05-30T08:11:02Z",
  "pushedAt": "2024-05-30T07:59:41Z"
}

In users mode each record instead includes login, name, company, location, email, blog, twitter, hireable, followers, following, publicRepos, publicGists and bio.

Input

{
  "mode": "repositories",
  "query": "stars:>10000 language:typescript",
  "maxItems": 100,
  "sort": "stars",
  "order": "desc",
  "enrichUserProfiles": true,
  "githubToken": ""
}

Field	Description
mode	Scrape repositories or users / profiles.
query	A GitHub search query, e.g. stars:>1000 language:python topic:ai or location:berlin language:go.
maxItems	Max repositories or users to return (GitHub caps search at 1000 per query).
sort / order	Sort field (stars, forks, followers, joined…) and direction (desc or asc).
enrichUserProfiles	In users mode, fetch each user's full profile (email, company, followers, bio).
githubToken	Optional personal access token for higher rate limits; no scopes needed for public data.

Use cases

• Build developer lead lists from user profiles filtered by location, language and followers.
• Research the top repositories in a technology or topic for competitive analysis.
• Source open-source maintainers with public emails for outreach or recruiting.
• Track stars, forks and activity across a curated set of projects over time.

Pricing

Pay-per-event: you're billed a small amount per run and per item scraped — you only pay for what you get. See the Pricing tab for current rates.

FAQ

Do I need a GitHub token or API key? No. The actor works out of the box against the official GitHub REST API with no login. A personal access token is optional — supply one to raise the rate limit to about 5000 requests/hour; no scopes are needed for public data.

How many repositories or users can I scrape per run? Up to 1000 per query — GitHub caps its search API at 1000 results per query. Use maxItems to set your own lower limit and refine the query to stay within that window.

Is scraping GitHub allowed? This actor uses GitHub's own public REST API and reads only publicly available data, respecting rate-limit resets and retrying on 403/429. Review GitHub's Acceptable Use Policies before large-scale or commercial reuse, especially of profile emails.

What's the output format? Structured JSON — in repositories mode, one record per repo (stars, forks, language, topics, license, dates); in users mode, one profile per user (login, company, location, email, followers, bio). Export as JSON, CSV, Excel or via the API.

Can I filter by stars, language or location? Yes. Use GitHub's query qualifiers directly, e.g. stars:>10000 language:typescript for repos or location:berlin followers:>500 for users, and sort by stars, forks, updated, followers or joined.

Related Actors

Doing developer research, lead-gen or recruiting? Combine this with our other developer-data scrapers:

• npm Package Scraper — search and look up npm packages with metadata, dependencies and downloads.
• PyPI Package Scraper — metadata, dependencies, licenses and downloads for Python packages.
• Stack Overflow & Stack Exchange Scraper — questions by tag or search across Stack Exchange sites.
• Hacker News Scraper — stories, comments and Ask/Show HN by keyword and filters.

Notes

This actor uses the public GitHub REST API and reads only publicly available data. It is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by GitHub, Inc. or Microsoft; "GitHub" is a trademark of GitHub, Inc.