GitHub Trending and Repo Mover Tracker

Pull the GitHub trending list for any timeframe, programming language, or spoken language. Each row ships the owner, repo name, description, primary language, total stars, stars added in the active window, fork count, and the row of top contributors. Pay per repo. No auth required.

Built for investors scouting open source momentum, recruiters watching breakout projects, dev tool founders studying competitive launches, and content teams building "what's hot in OSS this week" newsletters.

Keywords this actor ranks for: github trending api, github trending intelligence, github trending json, pull github repos, github mover tracker, github stars tracker, oss momentum tracker, open source intelligence, oss investment scout, github watch list builder, top github repos api, trending repos by language.

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Why this actor

Other GitHub trending tools	This actor
One web page that scrolls forever	Structured JSON one row per repo
All time only	Daily, weekly, and monthly windows
English only authors	Filter by spoken language code
Drop the contributor row	Top contributor avatars and handles included
Drop the period star count	"Stars added this week" parsed as a discrete field

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How it works

flowchart LR
    A[Timeframes + languages] --> B[github.com/trending<br/>plus filter slugs]
    B --> C[Plain server rendered HTML<br/>no auth, no JS]
    C --> D[Parse repo rows]
    D --> E[Push one row per repo]
    E --> F[(JSON CSV Excel API)]

Plain HTML, no browser needed. Cheerio parses the trending page and extracts each repo row with owner, name, description, language, stars, forks, and contributor avatars. Datacenter proxy is enough.

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What you get per row

flowchart LR
    R[Repo row] --> R1[Identity<br/>fullName owner name url]
    R --> R2[Pitch<br/>description language]
    R --> R3[Momentum<br/>starsTotal starsInPeriod forks]
    R --> R4[Slice<br/>timeframe languageFilter spokenLanguageCode]
    R --> R5[People<br/>builtBy contributor row]

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Quick start

Daily trending across all languages

{
  "timeframes": ["daily"]
}

Weekly trending in TypeScript and Rust

{
  "timeframes": ["weekly"],
  "languages": ["typescript", "rust"]
}

Monthly trending repos from Chinese authors

{
  "timeframes": ["monthly"],
  "spokenLanguageCode": "zh"
}

Daily and weekly across Python and Go (4 lists per run)

{
  "timeframes": ["daily", "weekly"],
  "languages": ["python", "go"]
}

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Sample output

{
  "rank": 1,
  "fullName": "anthropic/claude-code",
  "owner": "anthropic",
  "name": "claude-code",
  "url": "https://github.com/anthropic/claude-code",
  "description": "The official CLI for Claude",
  "language": "TypeScript",
  "languageColor": "#3178c6",
  "starsTotal": 12500,
  "starsInPeriod": 1230,
  "forks": 850,
  "timeframe": "daily",
  "languageFilter": "typescript",
  "spokenLanguageCode": null,
  "builtBy": [
    { "username": "alice", "profileUrl": "https://github.com/alice", "avatarUrl": "https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/123" }
  ],
  "scrapedAt": "2026-05-08T10:00:00.000Z"
}

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Who uses this

Role	Use case
OSS investor	Scout breakout repos by language and momentum window before VCs do
Recruiter	Source senior engineers from the contributor row of trending repos
Dev tool founder	Watch competitive launches at the moment they hit the front page
Content team	Build a weekly "what's hot in OSS" newsletter from real data, not guesswork
Analyst	Track language adoption shifts week over week
Recruiter agency	Build prospect lists by language and spoken language for niche searches

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Input reference

Field	Type	What it does
timeframes	string[]	One or more of daily, weekly, monthly. Default daily.
languages	string[]	Programming language slugs to filter by. Empty means all languages.
spokenLanguageCode	string	Two letter ISO code, for example en or zh.
maxReposPerList	integer	Cap per timeframe and language combination. Max 25.
includeContributors	boolean	Include the "Built by" avatar row with username and profile URL.
proxyConfiguration	object	Apify proxy. Datacenter is fine for GitHub.

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API call

curl -X POST \
  "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/YOUR_USER~github-trending-scraper/runs?token=YOUR_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "timeframes": ["daily", "weekly"],
    "languages": ["python", "rust"]
  }'

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Pricing

The first 5 repos per run are free so you can validate output before paying. After that, each repo row is charged. No surprise add on charges.

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FAQ

Do I need a GitHub token?

No. The actor only touches the public trending HTML page that any anonymous web visitor can see.

How many repos does each list return?

GitHub trending shows up to 25 repos per timeframe and language combination. The actor returns up to that cap per list.

Can I pull historical trending data?

GitHub does not publish a historical trending archive. Schedule the actor on a daily cron and store snapshots yourself to build your own time series.

How fresh is the data?

Each run hits the live trending page, so star counts and the contributor row reflect what GitHub renders at pull time.

Can I track a specific repo over time?

Run the actor on a schedule and filter the resulting dataset by fullName. Combine with the Apify scheduler to get a daily or weekly snapshot per repo.

Is pulling GitHub trending allowed?

This actor reads HTML any anonymous web visitor can see. Respect GitHub's terms and rate limit sensibly.

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