# GitHub Repository Search — Stars, Forks & Languages (`northglasslabs/github-repo-search`) Actor

Search GitHub repositories by keyword, language, and sort order using the free GitHub Search API. Returns repo metadata including stars, forks, license, owner info, and more. No authentication required.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/northglasslabs/github-repo-search.md
- **Developed by:** [North Glass Labs](https://apify.com/northglasslabs) (community)
- **Categories:** Developer tools
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $2.13 / 1,000 results

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.
Since this Actor supports Apify Store discounts, the price gets lower the higher subscription plan you have.

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

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
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.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## 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.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

## GitHub Repository Search — Stars, Forks, Languages & More

Search GitHub repositories by keyword using the free public GitHub Search API. Get repo names, descriptions, star counts, fork counts, owner info, licenses, and more. Filter by programming language and sort by stars, forks, or last updated. No authentication required.

### What It Does

This actor queries the [GitHub Search API](https://docs.github.com/en/rest/search) to find repositories matching your keywords. It returns structured data for each repository including the full name, description, star count, fork count, primary language, owner information, open issues, license, and creation/update dates.

GitHub's Search API is free and requires no authentication (rate limited to 10 requests/minute for unauthenticated requests). This actor is immune to bot detection — it uses the official API, not HTML scraping.

### Input Parameters

| Parameter | Type | Required | Default | Description |
|-----------|------|----------|---------|-------------|
| `searchQuery` | string | Yes | — | Keywords to search for (e.g. "web scraper", "machine learning", "react components") |
| `maxResults` | integer | No | 30 | Maximum number of repositories to return (1–100) |
| `sortBy` | enum | No | `stars` | Sort order: `stars`, `forks`, or `updated` |
| `language` | string | No | — | Filter by programming language (e.g. `python`, `javascript`, `go`). Leave empty to search all languages. |

### Output Fields

| Field | Type | Description |
|-------|------|-------------|
| `repoName` | string | Repository name (e.g. "react") |
| `fullName` | string | Full name with owner (e.g. "facebook/react") |
| `description` | string | Repository description |
| `url` | string | GitHub URL |
| `stars` | integer | Star count |
| `forks` | integer | Fork count |
| `language` | string | Primary programming language |
| `owner` | string | Owner username or org name |
| `ownerType` | string | Owner type (`User` or `Organization`) |
| `openIssues` | integer | Open issue count |
| `createdAt` | string | ISO date created |
| `updatedAt` | string | ISO date last updated |
| `license` | string | License name (e.g. "MIT License") |

### Use Cases

- **Market research** — Identify trending technologies and frameworks by star count
- **Competitor analysis** — Find repos in your space and track their engagement metrics
- **Developer lead generation** — Discover active repos and their owners for outreach
- **Tech stack discovery** — Filter by language to find repos using specific technologies
- **Open source monitoring** — Track the most-forked or recently-updated repos in a category
- **Content curation** — Build curated lists of top repos by topic for newsletters or blogs

### How It Works

The actor sends a GET request to `https://api.github.com/search/repositories` with your search query, optional language filter, and sort parameters. GitHub returns JSON directly — no browser or HTML parsing is involved. Results are pushed to the dataset as structured records. `maxResults` is clamped to GitHub's supported range of 1–100.

A valid GitHub response with no matches succeeds and produces an empty dataset. Upstream HTTP failures, invalid JSON, or malformed repository result structures fail the run instead of being reported as a successful empty search. Nullable text values are emitted as empty strings, and nullable numeric counters are emitted as `0`, matching the dataset schema.

### Example Usage

**Input:**

```json
{
    "searchQuery": "web scraping python",
    "maxResults": 10,
    "sortBy": "stars",
    "language": "python"
}
```

**Sample Output:**

```json
{
    "repoName": "scrapy",
    "fullName": "scrapy/scrapy",
    "description": "Scrapy is a fast high-level web crawling and web scraping framework...",
    "url": "https://github.com/scrapy/scrapy",
    "stars": 52000,
    "forks": 10400,
    "language": "Python",
    "owner": "scrapy",
    "ownerType": "Organization",
    "openIssues": 350,
    "createdAt": "2010-02-22T02:01:14Z",
    "updatedAt": "2026-07-09T00:00:00Z",
    "license": "BSD 3-Clause \"New\" or \"Revised\" License"
}
```

### Pricing

Pay-per-event pricing. You only pay for what you use — a small start cost plus a per-result fee. See the Apify Store listing for current rates.

### Tips

- Use specific keywords for better results (e.g. "rest api framework" instead of just "api")
- Filter by language to narrow results to your tech stack
- Sort by `updated` to find actively maintained repositories

# Actor input Schema

## `searchQuery` (type: `string`):

Keywords to search for in GitHub repositories (e.g. 'web scraper', 'machine learning', 'react components')

## `maxResults` (type: `integer`):

Maximum number of repositories to return (1-100)

## `sortBy` (type: `string`):

Sort order for search results

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

Optional: filter results by programming language (e.g. 'python', 'javascript', 'go'). Leave empty to search all languages.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "searchQuery": "machine learning",
  "maxResults": 30,
  "sortBy": "stars",
  "language": ""
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

Results stored in the default dataset

# 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 = {
    "searchQuery": "machine learning"
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("northglasslabs/github-repo-search").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 = { "searchQuery": "machine learning" }

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

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

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

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "searchQuery": "machine learning"
}' |
apify call northglasslabs/github-repo-search --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": [
                "mcp-remote",
                "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=northglasslabs/github-repo-search",
                "--header",
                "Authorization: Bearer <YOUR_API_TOKEN>"
            ]
        }
    }
}

```

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/aIce71z8B5DJD0C6Q/builds/MjMVzXB43fpRU7cQ4/openapi.json