GitHub Repository & Issue Scraper

Extract repository metadata, issues, pull requests, and contributor profiles from GitHub using the official REST API. This actor is ideal for developer lead generation, competitive open-source analysis, building talent pipelines, and monitoring repository health.

Why use this actor?

• No scraping complexity — Uses the official GitHub REST API for reliable, structured data.
• Developer lead generation — Find repositories by language, stars, or topic and extract contributor contact details.
• Competitive research — Track open issues and pull requests across competitor projects.
• Talent sourcing — Extract contributor profiles with public emails, company, and location.
• RAG & AI pipelines — Feed repository descriptions, issues, and documentation into vector databases.

Features

• Search repositories by GitHub query syntax (language, stars, topics, etc.)
• Scrape specific repositories by URL or owner/repo string
• Extract open issues with labels, comments, and author details
• Extract open pull requests with merge and draft status
• Extract contributor profiles with email, company, location, and bio
• Configurable per-repository limits to control run scope
• Optional GitHub token for 5000 requests/hour (vs 60/hour unauthenticated)

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
searchQuery	string	—	GitHub search query, e.g. language:python stars:>1000
repoUrls	array	—	List of repository URLs or owner/repo strings
extractIssues	boolean	false	Extract open issues per repository
extractPullRequests	boolean	false	Extract open pull requests per repository
extractUsers	boolean	false	Extract contributor profiles per repository
maxResults	integer	100	Maximum total records to return (1–1000)
githubToken	string	—	GitHub personal access token for higher rate limits
maxIssuesPerRepo	integer	30	Max issues per repository
maxPullRequestsPerRepo	integer	30	Max pull requests per repository
maxUsersPerRepo	integer	30	Max contributors per repository

Example input

{
  "searchQuery": "language:typescript stars:>5000",
  "extractIssues": true,
  "extractUsers": true,
  "maxResults": 50,
  "maxIssuesPerRepo": 10,
  "maxUsersPerRepo": 10
}

Output

Each record includes a type field to distinguish entities.

Repository

Field	Type	Description
type	string	repository
url	string	GitHub repository URL
owner	string	Repository owner
name	string	Repository name
fullName	string	owner/name
description	string	Repository description
stars	integer	Stargazer count
forks	integer	Fork count
openIssues	integer	Open issue count
language	string	Primary language
license	string	SPDX license identifier
createdAt	string	ISO 8601 creation timestamp
updatedAt	string	ISO 8601 update timestamp
topics	array	Repository topics

Issue

Field	Type	Description
type	string	issue
repository	string	Parent repository
url	string	Issue URL
number	integer	Issue number
title	string	Issue title
state	string	Issue state
author	string	Author username
labels	array	Label names
createdAt	string	ISO 8601 timestamp
updatedAt	string	ISO 8601 timestamp
comments	integer	Comment count

Pull Request

Field	Type	Description
type	string	pullRequest
repository	string	Parent repository
url	string	PR URL
number	integer	PR number
title	string	PR title
state	string	PR state
author	string	Author username
createdAt	string	ISO 8601 timestamp
updatedAt	string	ISO 8601 timestamp
merged	boolean	Merged status
draft	boolean	Draft status

User

Field	Type	Description
type	string	user
repository	string	Source repository
url	string	Profile URL
username	string	GitHub username
name	string	Display name
company	string	Company
blog	string	Blog URL
location	string	Location
email	string	Public email
bio	string	Bio
publicRepos	integer	Public repository count
followers	integer	Follower count
following	integer	Following count
createdAt	string	ISO 8601 timestamp

Limits and caveats

• Unauthenticated requests are limited to 60 per hour. Provide a githubToken for 5000 per hour.
• GitHub Search API returns up to 1000 results per query.
• Only public repositories are accessible without additional permissions.
• User emails are only returned if the user has chosen to make them public.
• The actor respects maxResults as a hard cap across all entity types.

Pricing

This actor uses Pay Per Event pricing. You are charged only for successfully extracted data.

Event	Price	Description
Repository scraped	$0.005	Each repository successfully extracted
Issue scraped	$0.002	Each issue successfully extracted
Pull request scraped	$0.002	Each pull request successfully extracted
User scraped	$0.005	Each contributor profile successfully extracted

Tiered discounts apply based on your Apify subscription level. A small actor-start fee may also apply.

FAQ

Do I need a GitHub account? No, but providing a GitHub personal access token dramatically increases your rate limit from 60 to 5000 requests per hour.

Can I scrape private repositories? No. This actor only accesses public data available through the GitHub REST API.

What happens if I hit the rate limit? The actor will log a warning and stop gracefully. Provide a token to avoid this.

Is the data real-time? Data reflects the current state of GitHub at the time of the run.