GitHub Repo & Developer Scraper — repos and developers as clean rows

Turn a GitHub search into a clean, exportable table. Search repositories (stars, forks, language, topics, license, activity dates) or developers (login, name, bio, company, location, public email, follower counts) by keyword, language and sort order — then export straight to CSV, JSON, or Excel. Works keyless out of the box; add an optional token for higher rate limits. $5 per 1,000 results — pay only for the rows you actually get.

What does it do?

This actor queries the official GitHub REST API and flattens the deeply-nested JSON into one row per repository or per developer. For repositories you get the popularity signals that matter — stars, forks, watchers, open issues — plus the language, topic tags, license, homepage, and the created / updated / pushed timestamps that tell you whether a project is alive or abandoned. For developers you get the profile fields recruiters and BD teams care about — name, bio, company, location, public email (when the user has made it public), public-repo count, and follower / following counts — enriched from each user's full profile.

No scraping of private data, no login, no anti-bot bypass. It reads the same public API that powers github.com search, and returns exactly what a logged-out visitor could see.

Why use it / who's it for

• Developer-tool & DevTool SaaS teams doing market research: pull the top 300 repos for language:rust cli, vector database, or llm agent and see who the incumbents are, how fast they're growing, and what they're licensed under.
• Open-source maintainers and investors tracking a trend: sort by recently updated to catch fast-moving new projects in a topic, or by stars to snapshot the leaders in a category.
• Developer lead-generation & devrel teams building a list of authors active in a niche (e.g. everyone publishing terraform modules) to invite to a beta, a community, or a sponsorship.
• Technical recruiters sourcing candidates by searching users for a skill keyword and location, then filtering to profiles with a public email or company for outreach.
• Analysts and data teams who want a reproducible, exportable snapshot of a GitHub category instead of clicking through the web UI.

How to use it

1. Enter a search query (e.g. machine learning, react state management, or a topic like kubernetes operator). GitHub qualifiers such as stars:>1000 work too.
2. Pick a search type — Repositories or Users / developers.
3. For repositories, optionally set a language filter (python, typescript, go) and a sort order (stars, forks, or recently updated).
4. Set max results (up to 300).
5. Optionally paste a GitHub token to lift the rate limit from 60 to 5,000 requests/hour.
6. Run it, then export the dataset to CSV, JSON, or Excel.

Output fields

Repositories:

Field	Description
full_name	owner/repo identifier
owner	Owner login (user or org)
description	Repo description (trimmed)
stars	Stargazer count
forks	Fork count
watchers	Watcher count
open_issues	Open issues + PRs
language	Primary language
topics	List of topic tags
license	SPDX id or license name
url	Repository URL
homepage	Project homepage (if set)
created_at, updated_at, pushed_at	Timestamps (ISO 8601)
is_archived	Whether the repo is archived

Users / developers:

Field	Description
login	GitHub username
name	Display name
url	Profile URL
type	User or Organization
bio	Profile bio
company	Company field
location	Location field
email	Public email (if the user made it public)
public_repos	Public repo count
followers, following	Follower / following counts
created_at	Account creation date

Example output

A real repository row from a live run:

Repository	Owner	Stars	Forks	Language	License	URL
tensorflow/tensorflow	tensorflow	196097	75336	C++	Apache-2.0	https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow

Input example

{
  "query": "machine learning",
  "searchType": "repositories",
  "language": "python",
  "sort": "stars",
  "maxItems": 30
}

Only query is required — every other field has a sensible default.

How much does it cost?

This actor uses pay-per-event pricing: $0.005 per result ($5 per 1,000 results). You're charged only for rows actually returned — no subscription, no charge for empty runs. New Apify accounts get roughly 1,000 free results per month on the platform's free tier, so you can pull a full category snapshot and test the output before paying anything. A 5,000-row pull costs $25; a 20,000-row research campaign costs $100.

FAQ

Do I need a GitHub token?

No. The actor works keyless, using GitHub's unauthenticated API which allows 60 requests per hour — enough for a small pull (the default 30-result run fits easily). If you need larger or more frequent runs, create a free personal access token (no scopes required for public data) and paste it into the githubToken field to raise the limit to 5,000 requests/hour. The token is stored as a secret.

What happens when I hit the rate limit?

The actor stops gracefully. It pushes whatever it collected so far, sets a clear status message ("GitHub API rate limit reached — please retry."), and exits cleanly — it never crashes and never hammers the API. Add a token or wait for the hourly window to reset, then re-run.

Why do I get at most 1,000 results per query?

That's a GitHub API limit, not the actor's: search returns only the first 1,000 matches for any query. To go deeper, narrow the query — split by language, by star range (stars:1000..5000), or by topic — and run each slice separately.

Why is email often empty for users?

GitHub only exposes an email through the API when the user has chosen to make it public on their profile. Most developers don't, so treat a populated email as a bonus, not a guarantee. All data returned is public.

Is this legal?

Yes. The actor reads only publicly available data from GitHub's official REST API — the same information any logged-out visitor can see. It doesn't log in, bypass limits, or access private repositories or profiles. Always follow applicable outreach laws (CAN-SPAM, GDPR, etc.) when you use any contact data.

Other Flash Scrape tools

• Company & Domain Enricher — turn a domain list into full company records with tech stack and socials
• Bulk Email Verifier — verify and score every email address before you send a campaign

Questions or a field you need added? Email zakaria@lysi.co — happy to help.