⭐ GitHub Topic Momentum Tracker

🚀 See which developer trend is accelerating fastest, not just which has the most stars. Compare star-growth velocity across GitHub topics in one run.

🕒 Last updated: 2026-07-07 · 📊 9 fields per topic · Built on GitHub's official Search API (no key required)

🎁 Try it free: the free Apify plan returns up to 10 results per run - enough to see the output quality. Any paid Apify plan unlocks full-size runs.

Give it a list of GitHub topics and it samples recently-created repos for each, then computes average stars-per-day-since-creation - so you can tell "llm" is EXPLOSIVE (469 stars/day) while "kubernetes" is COOL (6.8 stars/day) among new entrants, instead of just comparing total repo counts.

🎯 Target Audience	💡 Primary Use Cases
VCs/analysts, developer-tool marketers, tech recruiters, engineering leads	Tech trend-spotting, competitive landscape scanning, developer-marketing targeting, hiring-market research

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📋 What this Actor does

• Searches GitHub's official API for repos created within a recent window (default 180 days), per topic
• Computes each sampled repo's stars-per-day-since-creation
• Averages that into a topic-level velocity score, labeled EXPLOSIVE / HOT / WARM / COOL
• Surfaces the top repo and a sample list behind the number

💡 Why it matters: total star count rewards old, established projects. Velocity tells you what's actually catching fire right now.

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🎬 Full demo

🚧 Video walkthrough coming soon - the Quick Start below takes under 3 minutes end to end.

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⚙️ Input

Input	Type	Default	Behavior
topics	string	(prefilled)	Comma-separated GitHub topics/keywords, up to 6
createdWithinDays	integer	180	Only repos created within this many days (30-730)
maxResults	integer	20	Repos sampled per topic (5-50)
githubToken	string	(none)	Optional personal access token for a higher rate limit

Example: Compare 4 dev trends

{ "topics": "llm, rust, kubernetes, webassembly", "createdWithinDays": 180, "maxResults": 20 }

Example: Very recent entrants only

{ "topics": "ai-agents, edge-computing", "createdWithinDays": 60, "maxResults": 15 }

⚠️ Good to know: works unauthenticated for normal use; supply your own GitHub token only if you're running this frequently and hit GitHub's anonymous rate limit.

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📊 Output

Each topic returns 9 fields. Download as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML, or consume via the Apify API.

🧾 Schema

Field	Type	Example
topic	string	llm
reposFound	integer	54076
reposSampled	integer	20
avgStarVelocity	number	469.2
momentumLevel	string	EXPLOSIVE
topRepo	string	affaan-m/ECC
topRepoStars	integer	226819
sampleRepos	array	["affaan-m/ECC", "rtk-ai/rtk"]
generatedAt	string	2026-07-07T10:41:34Z

📦 Sample record

{"topic":"llm","reposFound":54076,"reposSampled":20,"avgStarVelocity":469.2,"momentumLevel":"EXPLOSIVE","topRepo":"affaan-m/ECC","topRepoStars":226819,"sampleRepos":["affaan-m/ECC","rtk-ai/rtk"],"generatedAt":"2026-07-07T10:41:34Z"}

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✨ Why choose this Actor

	Capability
🏆	Velocity, not vanity metrics. Ranks by growth rate among recent entrants, not lifetime star count.
💻	Multi-topic in one run. Compare up to 6 developer trends side by side.
⚡	Built on GitHub's official API. Free, works unauthenticated - stable and durable.
🔁	Automatic retries. Transient failures retry with backoff.
💳	Pay per result. No subscription. A typical 4-topic run costs about $0.03.

📊 Turns 4 manual GitHub searches into 1 ranked momentum table.

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📈 How it compares to alternatives

Approach	Cost	Coverage	Refresh	Setup
⭐ GitHub Topic Momentum Tracker (this Actor)	$5 free credit, then pay-per-use	Any topic, up to 6 per run	Live per run	⚡ 2 min
GitHub Trending page	Free	Daily/weekly snapshot, no cross-topic comparison	Daily	🐢 Manual browsing
Manually searching GitHub	Free	One topic at a time	Live	🐢 Manual, one by one
Manual copy-paste	Free	Current session only	One-shot	🐢 Hours of clicking

Pick this Actor when you want a ranked, multi-topic velocity view without writing scoring logic yourself.

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🚀 How to use

1. 📝 Sign up. Create a free Apify account with $5 credit (takes 2 minutes).
2. 🌐 Open the Actor. Go to the GitHub Topic Momentum Tracker page on the Apify Store.
3. ✏️ Set your input. List your topics - or just press Start, the prefilled example works.
4. 🚀 Run it. Watch results stream into the Dataset tab.
5. 📥 Download. Grab results as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML - or pipe them anywhere via the Apify API.

⏱️ Total time from signup to downloaded dataset: 3-5 minutes. No coding required.

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💼 Business use cases

• VCs/analysts: spot accelerating developer trends before they hit mainstream tech press.
• Developer-tool marketers: find which ecosystem to target next based on real momentum.
• Tech recruiters: identify hot skill areas before job postings catch up.
• Engineering leads: justify a tech-stack bet with real adoption-velocity evidence.

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🌟 Beyond business use cases

• 🎓 Research & academia - software ecosystem and open-source adoption studies.
• 🎨 Personal & creative - content research for a dev newsletter or YouTube channel.
• 🤝 Non-profit & civic - track open-source tooling growth in public-interest areas.
• 🧪 Experimentation - prototype a tech-trend dashboard on real data.

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🔌 Automating GitHub Topic Momentum Tracker

Node.js (apify-client on NPM):

const { ApifyClient } = require('apify-client');
const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN' });
const run = await client.actor('saint_person/github-repo-momentum-tracker').call({ topics: "llm, rust, kubernetes", createdWithinDays: 180, maxResults: 20 });
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();

Python (apify-client on PyPI):

from apify_client import ApifyClient
client = ApifyClient('YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN')
run = client.actor('saint_person/github-repo-momentum-tracker').call(run_input={"topics": "llm, rust, kubernetes", "createdWithinDays": 180, "maxResults": 20})
items = client.dataset(run['defaultDatasetId']).list_items().items

📚 Full Apify API documentation

Apify Schedules triggers this Actor on any cron interval - weekly for a standing dev-trend watch.

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🧠 Use via MCP (for AI agents)

GitHub Topic Momentum Tracker is directly callable by any MCP-compatible AI agent (Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, and others) through Apify's hosted MCP server - no custom integration code needed.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "apify": {
      "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/sse?actors=saint_person/github-repo-momentum-tracker",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN" }
    }
  }
}

Once connected, just ask your agent something like: "Use the GitHub Topic Momentum Tracker Actor to tell me which of these 4 tech topics is accelerating fastest."

📚 Apify MCP server docs

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🤖 Ask an AI assistant about this Actor

• 💬 ChatGPT
• 🧠 Claude
• 🔍 Perplexity

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❓ Frequently Asked Questions

🧩 How does it work?

It queries GitHub's official Search API per topic, filtered to recently-created repos, then computes average stars-per-day since creation.

Why filter to recently-created repos?

Without it, decade-old giants with huge lifetime star counts would dominate every topic's average, hiding genuinely emerging momentum.

What counts as "EXPLOSIVE"?

An average star velocity of 200+ stars/day across the sampled repos.

Do I need a GitHub token?

No - it works unauthenticated for normal use. A token only raises the rate limit if you're running this very frequently.

⏰ Can I schedule regular runs?

Yes. Use Apify Schedules to run this Actor on any cron interval.

⚖️ Is this data legal to collect?

This Actor only collects data that is publicly accessible via GitHub's official API. No login, no bypass of access controls.

💳 Do I need a paid Apify plan?

No. The free Apify plan is enough for testing and small runs.

🔁 What happens if a run fails?

Transient errors retry automatically with backoff. If a run still fails, the log explains exactly why.

🆘 What if I need help?

Open an issue on this Actor's Issues tab.

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🔌 Integrate with any app

• Zapier
• Make
• n8n
• Google Sheets
• Slack
• Gmail
• Webhooks
• MCP

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🔗 Recommended Actors

Pairs well with HN Topic Momentum Tracker for comparing developer buzz against open-source adoption.

💡 Pro tip: browse the complete saint_person collection for more tools like this.

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🆘 Help & custom requests

• 🐛 Something not working? Open an issue on this Actor's Issues tab.
• 🛠️ Need a custom feature or a different data source? Open an issue describing what you need.

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⚠️ Disclaimer: this Actor is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by GitHub, Inc. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Only publicly available data is collected.