GitHub API

Overview

Measurement Record

What actually happened when we called this API from our own infrastructure. Every value below was recorded by the request, not copied from the provider's documentation.

Request

GET https://api.github.com/repos/torvalds/linux

Result

HTTP 200 · application/json · 5,487 bytes · compressed

Response time

45 ms (median of 3) · fastest 44 ms

Transport

TLSv1.3 · TLS_AES_128_GCM_SHA256 · certificate issued by Sectigo Limited

Browser CORS

Allowed — Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *

Rate limit

60 per window (55 remaining at test time)

Served by

github.com

Recorded

2026-08-10

Available Data

The kind of data this API exposes, based on its documentation. We could not call the endpoint to confirm the exact field names.

Captured Response

Captured from a real request to https://api.github.com/repos/torvalds/linux on 2026-08-10. Long arrays and nested objects are truncated to keep the shape readable.

{
  "id": 2325298,
  "node_id": "MDEwOlJlcG9zaXRvcnkyMzI1Mjk4",
  "name": "linux",
  "full_name": "torvalds/linux",
  "private": false,
  "owner": {
    "login": "torvalds",
    "id": 1024025,
    "node_id": "MDQ6VXNlcjEwMjQwMjU=",
    "avatar_url": "https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/1024025?v=4",
    "gravatar_id": "",
    "url": "https://api.github.com/users/torvalds",
    "html_url": "https://github.com/torvalds",
    "followers_url": "https://api.github.com/users/torvalds/followers",
    "following_url": "https://api.github.com/users/torvalds/following{/other_user}",
    "gists_url": "https://api.github.com/users/torvalds/gists{/gist_id}",
    "starred_url": "https://api.github.com/users/torvalds/starred{/owner}{/repo}",
    "subscriptions_url": "https://api.github.com/users/torvalds/subscriptions",
    "organizations_url": "https://api.github.com/users/torvalds/orgs",
    "repos_url": "https://api.github.com/users/torvalds/repos",
    "…": "(5 more fields)"
  },
  "html_url": "https://github.com/torvalds/linux",
  "description": "Linux kernel source tree",
  "fork": false,
  "url": "https://api.github.com/repos/torvalds/linux",
  "forks_url": "https://api.github.com/repos/torvalds/linux/forks",
  "keys_url": "https://api.github.com/repos/torvalds/linux/keys{/key_id}",
  "collaborators_url": "https://api.github.com/repos/torvalds/linux/collaborators{/collaborator}",
 
…

Implementation Example

Calls a real endpoint of this API. Replace any placeholder credentials with your own key.

// Get repository information
const url = "https://api.github.com/repos/github/docs";

const response = await fetch(url, {
  headers: {
    "Accept": "application/vnd.github+json",
    "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN"
  }
});
if (!response.ok) throw new Error(`Request failed: ${response.status}`);
const data = await response.json();

console.log(`Repository: ${data.full_name}`);
console.log(`Stars: ${data.stargazers_count}`);
console.log(`Forks: ${data.forks_count}`);
console.log(`Description: ${data.description}`);

import requests

# Get repository information
url = "https://api.github.com/repos/github/docs"
headers = {
    "Accept": "application/vnd.github+json",
    "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN"
}

response = requests.get(url, headers=headers, timeout=30)
response.raise_for_status()
data = response.json()

print(f"Repository: {data['full_name']}")
print(f"Stars: {data['stargazers_count']}")
print(f"Forks: {data['forks_count']}")
print(f"Description: {data['description']}")

curl -H "Accept: application/vnd.github+json" "https://api.github.com/repos/torvalds/linux"

What Can You Build?

// Get repository or project information
const headers = { 'Authorization': 'Bearer YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN' };
const response = await fetch(`https://docs.github.com/rest`, { headers });
const data = await response.json();
console.log('Project info:', data);
const info = data.repository || data;
console.log('Name:', info.name || info.full_name);
console.log('Stars:', info.stars || info.stargazers_count || 'N/A');

// Fetch developer resources
const headers = { 'Authorization': 'Bearer YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN' };
const response = await fetch(`https://docs.github.com/rest`, { headers });
const data = await response.json();
const items = Array.isArray(data) ? data : data.results || data.items || [data];
items.slice(0, 5).forEach(item => {
  console.log(`📦 ${item.name || item.title}: ${item.description || 'No description'}`);
});

// Search for development resources
const headers = { 'Authorization': 'Bearer YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN' };
const query = 'javascript';
const response = await fetch(`https://docs.github.com/rest`, { headers });
const data = await response.json();
const results = data.items || data.results || [];
results.slice(0, 5).forEach(r => {
  console.log(`Result: ${r.name || r.title} - ${r.url || r.html_url || ''}`);
});

Note: These code examples are AI-generated and unverified. Always refer to the official API documentation for accurate usage.

How This API Fails

We deliberately sent this API a broken request and recorded exactly what came back on 2026-08-10. Knowing the shape of an error before you hit it makes error handling much easier to write.

{
  "message": "Not Found",
  "documentation_url": "https://docs.github.com/rest",
  "status": "404"
}

Common Errors & Troubleshooting

Generated guidance based on this API's documentation, not observed by us. Treat it as a starting point and check against the provider's own error reference.