GitHub Commit History: Commits, Authors & Dates

What does GitHub Commit History: Commits, Authors & Dates do?

GitHub Commit History reads a public GitHub repository's commit log, newest first: who committed what, and when.

Give it repositories like facebook/react or any github.com link inside one. For each you get the last commit date, author and message at the top of the row, the distinct authors, and every commit with its sha, author name and email, date, full message and link. Narrow it with a date window (since, until) or read a branch, tag or commit other than the default.

You pay one flat price per repository, not per commit, so 100 commits cost the same as 1.

It never signs in anywhere and never changes anything. It only reads public repositories.

Why use it?

• Is this project still alive? The last commit date for a list of dependencies or candidate libraries, in one table.
• What happened this week? Every commit in a date window, ready to summarise or hand to a model for a changelog or standup note.
• Who works on it? The authors and their commit emails, per repository.
• AI agents. Connect it as an MCP server and let an agent answer "when was facebook/react last updated, and by whom?" while it works.

How it works

For each repository:

1. It reads the repository's commits on GitHub, newest first, from the default branch or the one you name.
2. It keeps only commits inside your date window, if you gave one, up to maxCommits.
3. It puts the newest commit's date, author and first line at the top of the row, and the full list in commits.

Input

Field	Required	Description
repos	Yes	One repository per entry: "owner/repo" or any github.com link inside it.
since	No	Only commits on or after this date, like "2026-10-01".
until	No	Only commits before this date, like "2026-10-15".
branch	No	A branch, tag or commit sha. Default: the repository's default branch.
maxCommits	No	At most this many commits per repository, 1 to 100. Default 30.
maxConcurrency	No	Repositories processed at once, 1 to 8. Default 4.

Example input:

{ "repos": ["facebook/react", "https://github.com/astral-sh/uv"], "since": "2026-10-20", "maxCommits": 50 }

Output

One dataset row per repository, with every commit in the commits column. Download it as JSON, CSV, Excel or HTML, or read it through the Apify API.

{
  "input": "octocat/Hello-World",
  "status": "found",
  "repo": "octocat/Hello-World",
  "branch": null,
  "since": null,
  "until": null,
  "lastCommitAt": "2012-03-06T23:06:50Z",
  "lastCommitAuthor": "The Octocat",
  "lastCommitTitle": "Merge pull request #6 from Spaceghost/patch-1",
  "commitCount": 3,
  "authors": ["The Octocat", "Johnneylee Jack Rollins", "cameronmcefee"],
  "commits": [
    {
      "sha": "7fd1a60b01f91b314f59955a4e4d4e80d8edf11d",
      "shortSha": "7fd1a60",
      "authorName": "The Octocat",
      "authorEmail": "octocat@nowhere.com",
      "date": "2012-03-06T23:06:50Z",
      "title": "Merge pull request #6 from Spaceghost/patch-1",
      "message": "Merge pull request #6 from Spaceghost/patch-1\n\nNew line at end of file.",
      "url": "https://github.com/octocat/Hello-World/commit/7fd1a60b01f91b314f59955a4e4d4e80d8edf11d"
    }
  ],
  "warnings": [],
  "error": null
}

status is found, not_found or error. not_found means the repository was read and had no commits in your date window, which is a real answer (the project was quiet); warnings says so. error means GitHub has no public repository by that name, or no branch by the name you gave.

Pricing

$0.002 per repository, with no monthly fee, however many commits it returns.

• A repository is charged when its history is read, even if no commit falls in your date window.
• A repository that does not exist, or that fails with an error, is not charged.
• Set a spending limit on the run and the Actor stops cleanly when it reaches it.
• On Apify's free plan, each run processes the first 10 repositories (10 tool calls per MCP session). Any paid Apify plan removes the limit.

Use it as an MCP server

This Actor also runs as an MCP server with one tool, get_commit_history. Point any MCP client (Claude, Cursor, ChatGPT, your own agent) at:

https://bowmark-ai--github-commit-history.apify.actor/mcp

with your Apify API token as a bearer token. Each tool call is billed like one repository in a normal run.

Limits and good practice

• It reads only public repositories. It never signs in anywhere and never changes anything.
• Up to 100 commits per repository per run. For older history, use until to step back in time.
• Commit messages longer than 5,000 characters are cut, with the link to the full commit.
• Author name and email are what the committer wrote into git. Many people use a GitHub "noreply" address.

Related Actors

• GitHub Release Notes: the same repository's release notes, newest first, with a "since my version" filter for upgrades.
• GitHub Repo Activity: commits and release notes together, with a maintained or quiet verdict for each repository.

Questions or a wrong result?

Open an issue on the Issues tab with the input you used and what you expected. We read every one.