# GitHub Trending Repos & Release Tracker (`kravennagen/github-repo-velocity-scraper`) Actor

Extract fast-growing GitHub repos, stars velocity, topic tags, license data, owner details, and latest release changelogs via direct REST API.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/kravennagen/github-repo-velocity-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [Morgane Flamant](https://apify.com/kravennagen) (community)
- **Categories:** Automation, Developer tools
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $0.40 / 1,000 extracted github repositories

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/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#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 Trending Repositories & Release Velocity Tracker

A high-performance **Apify Actor** built in Python to scrape fast-growing GitHub repositories, star velocity, topics, license info, owner metadata, and recent release changelogs using GitHub's public REST APIs.

***

### 🌟 Key Features

- **⚡ Ultra Fast & Lightweight**: Uses direct HTTP requests with `httpx` async I/O. No headless browser overhead (~128MB RAM footprint).
- **🔍 Flexible Search Syntax**: Leverage GitHub's search API syntax to find repositories by topic, language, star count, creation date, or update date.
- **📦 Release Velocity Tracking**: Optionally extract latest release tags, publication dates, and release links to analyze project activity.
- **🔑 GitHub Token Support**: Optionally pass your Personal Access Token (PAT) to increase API rate limits for large data collection.
- **📊 Store-Ready Dataset**: Automatically pushes standardized JSON records to Apify's Dataset storage with tabular overview support.

***

### 📥 Input Parameters

The Actor accepts the following input settings in JSON format:

| Parameter | Type | Default | Description |
| :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- |
| `query` | `string` | `"topic:llm created:>2026-01-01"` | GitHub search syntax query (e.g. `topic:llm`, `language:python stars:>1000`). |
| `sort` | `string` | `"stars"` | Sort field: `stars`, `forks`, or `updated`. |
| `order` | `string` | `"desc"` | Sort direction: `desc` (High to Low) or `asc` (Low to High). |
| `includeLatestRelease` | `boolean` | `true` | Fetch the tag, release date, and URL for each repository's latest release. |
| `maxItems` | `integer` | `50` | Maximum number of repositories to return. |
| `githubToken` | `string` | `null` | *(Optional)* GitHub Personal Access Token to avoid unauthenticated rate limits. |

#### Example Input JSON

```json
{
  "query": "topic:ai-agent stars:>500",
  "sort": "stars",
  "order": "desc",
  "includeLatestRelease": true,
  "maxItems": 20
}
```

***

### 📤 Output Format

Each extracted item in the dataset follows a structured Pydantic schema:

```json
{
  "id": 12345678,
  "name": "example-agent",
  "full_name": "owner/example-agent",
  "html_url": "https://github.com/owner/example-agent",
  "description": "An autonomous AI agent framework.",
  "homepage": "https://example-agent.com",
  "language": "Python",
  "stars_count": 4500,
  "forks_count": 320,
  "open_issues_count": 15,
  "topics": ["ai", "agents", "llm"],
  "license_name": "MIT License",
  "created_at": "2026-01-15T10:00:00Z",
  "updated_at": "2026-08-25T08:30:00Z",
  "pushed_at": "2026-08-25T08:30:00Z",
  "owner_login": "owner",
  "owner_type": "Organization",
  "owner_url": "https://github.com/owner",
  "owner_avatar_url": "https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/123456",
  "latest_release": {
    "tag_name": "v1.2.0",
    "name": "v1.2.0 Performance Improvements",
    "published_at": "2026-08-20T14:22:00Z",
    "html_url": "https://github.com/owner/example-agent/releases/tag/v1.2.0",
    "is_prerelease": false
  }
}
```

***

### 🚀 Running Locally

#### Prerequisites

- Python 3.10+
- `pip`

#### Step 1: Install Dependencies

```bash
pip install -r requirements.txt
```

#### Step 2: Run the Actor

```bash
python -m src.main
```

Or run via Apify CLI:

```bash
apify run
```

***

### 🐳 Docker Support

To build and run using Docker:

```bash
docker build -t github-velocity-scraper .
docker run -it github-velocity-scraper
```

# Actor input Schema

## `query` (type: `string`):

GitHub search syntax. Examples: 'topic:llm', 'language:rust stars:>500', 'created:>2026-01-01'

## `sort` (type: `string`):

Criteria to sort repositories by.

## `order` (type: `string`):

Direction to sort results (Descending or Ascending).

## `includeLatestRelease` (type: `boolean`):

Fetch release tag, date, and link for each repository.

## `maxItems` (type: `integer`):

Maximum number of repositories to extract.

## `githubToken` (type: `string`):

Optional GitHub token to increase API rate limits (recommended for large scrapes).

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "query": "topic:llm created:>2026-01-01",
  "sort": "stars",
  "order": "desc",
  "includeLatestRelease": true,
  "maxItems": 50
}
```

# Actor output Schema

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

Structured GitHub repositories 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 = {
    "query": "topic:llm created:>2026-01-01",
    "maxItems": 50
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("kravennagen/github-repo-velocity-scraper").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 = {
    "query": "topic:llm created:>2026-01-01",
    "maxItems": 50,
}

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

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

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

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "query": "topic:llm created:>2026-01-01",
  "maxItems": 50
}' |
apify call kravennagen/github-repo-velocity-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,kravennagen/github-repo-velocity-scraper"
        }
    }
}

```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/FCC8O7bit1OEYaL8S/builds/2GnJPnVx8yL3mHQe8/openapi.json