GitHub Trending & Rising Repos — Topics, Owners, Contacts

Most GitHub trending scrapers hand you a thin list of ~20 repo names. This one does three things they don't: it enriches every repo from the official GitHub API (topics, license, homepage, created & last-push dates, open issues), it scrapes the trending developers list, and its discover mode searches the whole of GitHub for rising projects — getting past the search API's hard 1,000-result cap by slicing the period into date windows.

• 📈 Volume that actually exists — a trending page holds only 12-22 repos (measured). Discover mode returned 2,452 unique repos in a single run for one month of new projects.
• 🏷️ Enriched, not just listed — license 100%, created & last-push dates 100%, open issues 100%, homepage 67%, topics 56% (measured on a live trending page)
• 👤 Owner profiles — company, personal site, X handle, location and follower count for each maintainer
• 🆓 No key required — official public endpoints; add a free GitHub token only if you want big enriched runs

Quick start (API)

Every repo created in the last month with 50+ stars, fully enriched:

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/foxlabs~github-trending-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{ "mode": "discover", "dateFrom": "2026-07-01", "dateTo": "2026-07-31", "minStars": 50, "windowDays": 7 }'

Prefer no code? Open the Input tab, keep the defaults for today's trending list, and press Start.

What you get

Field	Type	Description
fullName / owner / name / url	string	The repository and its GitHub URL
description	string	Repo description
language	string	Primary programming language
totalStars / totalForks	number	Current totals
starsInPeriod	number	Stars gained in the trending window (trending mode)
builders	array	Contributor usernames shown on the trending card
topics	array	GitHub topics — how the project describes itself
license	string	SPDX identifier, e.g. MIT, Apache-2.0
homepage	string	Project website, when set
openIssues / watchers	number	Open issues and watchers
createdAt / pushedAt	string	First published / last commit (ISO)
isArchived / isFork / defaultBranch	bool / string	Repo state
enrichmentStatus	string	Only present when enrichment was skipped, and it says why — never a silent blank

With owner enrichment on, each row also carries ownerType, ownerName, ownerCompany, ownerBlog, ownerTwitter, ownerLocation, ownerFollowers, ownerPublicRepos, ownerUrl — and ownerEmail on the rare profile that publishes one (see Data quality).

Trending-developers rows carry username, displayName, profileUrl, popularRepoName plus the same owner fields.

Sample output

Real rows from live runs (2026-07-31):

{
  "fullName": "block/buzz",
  "url": "https://github.com/block/buzz",
  "description": "A hive mind communication platform",
  "language": "Rust",
  "totalStars": 19198,
  "totalForks": 1916,
  "starsInPeriod": 12444,
  "builders": ["wesbillman", "wpfleger96", "tlongwell-block"],
  "license": "Apache-2.0",
  "source": { "mode": "trending", "since": "weekly", "language": null }
}

{
  "fullName": "synthetic-sciences/openscience",
  "url": "https://github.com/synthetic-sciences/openscience",
  "totalStars": 3004,
  "license": "MIT",
  "createdAt": "2026-07-03T11:20:07Z",
  "source": { "mode": "discover", "window": "2026-07-01..2026-07-07" }
}

Download as JSON, CSV, Excel or HTML, or read it straight from the API.

Modes & filters

• Trending repositories — pick any number of languages and any of daily / weekly / monthly; every combination is a separate page. Optional spoken-language filter.
• Trending developers — the 25-person list, with optional profile enrichment.
• Discover rising repos — minStars, created vs pushed date, a date range, an optional language, topic or raw search qualifiers. windowDays controls how finely the period is sliced: smaller windows reach deeper past the 1,000-per-search cap.
• Enrichment — repo enrichment is on by default; owner enrichment is opt-in (one extra request per unique owner).
• Max results — hard cap; 0 = unlimited.

Example inputs (copy & paste)

// 1) Today's trending, enriched
{ "mode": "trending", "periods": ["daily"], "enrichRepos": true }

// 2) Weekly trending across your stack
{ "mode": "trending", "languages": ["rust", "go", "typescript"], "periods": ["weekly"] }

// 3) New AI projects gaining traction this quarter
{ "mode": "discover", "topic": "llm", "minStars": 100, "dateFrom": "2026-05-01", "dateTo": "2026-07-31", "windowDays": 7 }

// 4) Actively maintained Rust projects, with maintainer contacts
{ "mode": "discover", "discoverLanguage": "rust", "dateField": "pushed", "minStars": 500, "enrichOwners": true }

// 5) Trending developers to reach out to
{ "mode": "trending_developers", "enrichOwners": true }

// 6) Deep sweep of one month, day by day
{ "mode": "discover", "dateFrom": "2026-07-01", "dateTo": "2026-07-31", "windowDays": 1, "minStars": 20, "maxResults": 0 }

Use cases

• Developer marketing / DevRel. Find the projects rising in your category this week, then reach the maintainers through the profile fields (site, X handle, company) rather than guessing.
• VC & scout sourcing. Discover mode with created dates surfaces genuinely new repos passing a star threshold — the earliest public signal a project is working.
• Technical recruiting. Trending developers plus profile enrichment gives you an ordered list of people whose work is getting attention right now.
• Competitive & ecosystem tracking. Watch a topic (llm, kubernetes, fintech) week over week: what launched, what got stars, what stopped being maintained (pushedAt).
• Research datasets. Slice any period into windows and pull thousands of enriched repo records for analysis.

Performance & cost

Pure HTTP against GitHub's public pages and official API — no browser, no proxy. Measured on the platform (2026-07-31): a trending page with enrichment took 7 seconds; the trending developers list with profile enrichment 7 seconds; a 2,452-row discover sweep of one month 260 seconds.

Rate limits, honestly: GitHub allows about 60 API requests per hour without a token (and 10 searches per minute). That's fine for a trending page, but big enriched runs need a free GitHub personal access token (no scopes required) — it raises the limits to 5,000/hour and 30 searches/minute. Paste it in the Advanced input. When the limit is reached, rows carry an explicit enrichmentStatus explaining it; the Actor never fills fields with silent blanks.

Integrations

JavaScript (apify-client):

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';
const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN' });
const run = await client.actor('foxlabs/github-trending-scraper').call({
  mode: 'discover', topic: 'llm', minStars: 100, dateFrom: '2026-07-01', windowDays: 7,
});
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();

Python (apify-client):

from apify_client import ApifyClient
client = ApifyClient("YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN")
run = client.actor("foxlabs/github-trending-scraper").call(run_input={
    "mode": "trending", "languages": ["rust"], "periods": ["weekly"], "enrichRepos": True,
})
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item["fullName"], item.get("totalStars"), item.get("license"))

Also works with Make / n8n / Zapier, scheduled runs, webhooks and the Apify MCP server.

Data quality (measured 2026-07-31)

What	Result
Trending page, enriched (n=18)	repo name / language / stars / forks / stars-in-period / builders 100% · license 100% · created & pushed dates 100% · open issues 100% · homepage 67% · topics 56% · description 94%
Discover sweep (n=2,452, July 2026)	2,452 / 2,452 unique · created & pushed dates 100% · open issues 100% · license 72% · language 81% · topics 46% · homepage 25% · 0 rows outside the requested window
Trending developers (n=25)	username 100% · follower count 100% · display name 96% · popular repo 96% · location 68% · personal site 64% · company 56% · X handle 48%
URL evidence	10 of 10 randomly picked repo URLs loaded and matched their row
Search-cap workaround	verified: a single search stops at 1,000 (HTTP 422 past it); the windowed run returned 2,452

About e-mails: GitHub profiles almost never publish one — measured 0 of 25 trending developers. Treat ownerEmail as a bonus, not a channel; the reliable contact points are the personal site (64%), X handle (48%) and company (56%). Fields a repo or profile doesn't publish (no topics, no license, no homepage) come back empty — that's the source, not a gap in the Actor.

Pricing

Pay per result — billed per row returned, with an Apify free tier to evaluate. GitHub's endpoints are free, so there are no proxy or third-party costs.

FAQ

Where does the data come from? github.com/trending (public server-rendered pages) and the official GitHub REST API for enrichment and discovery.

Why does trending only return ~20 repos? Because that's all GitHub publishes on a trending page — measured 12 to 22 depending on language and period. Use discover mode when you need volume.

How do you get more than 1,000 search results? GitHub refuses to page past 1,000 results for a single search (verified: HTTP 422). Discover mode slices the period into windows and searches each one separately, so the ceiling applies per window rather than per run — 2,452 rows in the measured example.

Do I need a GitHub token? No for trending pages. Yes, practically, for large enriched runs or heavy discovery: anonymous access is ~60 requests/hour. A free token with no scopes lifts it to 5,000/hour.

Will I get maintainer e-mails? Rarely — see Data quality. Most maintainers keep e-mail private; the site / X / company fields are the useful contact route.

Is scraping the trending page allowed? It's a public page with no login or anti-bot, fetched at a polite rate, and enrichment uses the official documented API within its rate limits.

Can I track a topic over time? Yes — schedule discover mode weekly with a fixed topic and rolling dates, then diff the datasets.

What's starsInPeriod? The "stars today / this week / this month" number GitHub shows on the trending card. It only exists in trending mode.

Troubleshooting

• enrichmentStatus says rate limit → add a free GitHub token in the Advanced input, or lower maxResults.
• 0 rows in discover → widen the date range, lower minStars, or drop the topic filter; a narrow window plus a high star floor can genuinely match nothing.
• A language returns 404 → use GitHub's own slug (e.g. c%23 for C#, jupyter-notebook), as it appears in the trending URL.
• Fewer rows than expected in trending → that's the page size (12-22), not a failure. If a page yields zero entries the run fails loudly, because that would mean GitHub changed its markup.

Notes, limits & legal

• Repository content and profiles belong to their authors; this Actor redistributes what GitHub publishes publicly. Not affiliated with GitHub.
• Trending pages are HTML — if GitHub restructures them the run fails with a clear message rather than returning an empty "success".
• topics, license and homepage are only as complete as the projects themselves (measured fills above).

Support

Questions, a field you'd like added, or a custom build? Open the Issues tab, or e-mail info@foxlabs.com.tr. We reply fast.

If this Actor saves you time, a ⭐ review really helps.

Changelog

0.2 — 2026-07-31

• Discover mode — searches the whole of GitHub for rising repos and slices the period into date windows to get past the search API's 1,000-result cap (measured: 2,452 unique rows for one month, 0 outside the window).
• Enrichment from the official API — topics, license, homepage, created/pushed dates, open issues, watchers, plus optional owner profiles (company, site, X handle, location, followers).
• Trending developers mode — the 25-person list with optional profile enrichment.
• Honest rate-limit + fail-loud handling — enrichmentStatus explains any skipped enrichment; a trending page that parses to zero entries fails the run instead of reporting empty success.

0.1 — 2026-05-20

• Initial release: github.com/trending HTML scraping by language and period.

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Part of the foXLabs data platform — official public-data company, developer, jobs & market intelligence scrapers. Browse the full suite at data.foxlabs.com.tr.