GitHub Release Monitor

Monitor GitHub repositories for new releases and tags. This actor extracts comprehensive release information from GitHub.com including tag names, changelogs, download URLs, and author details.

Features

• Monitor Multiple Repos: Track releases from multiple repositories simultaneously
• Custom URLs: Provide your own GitHub release page URLs
• Pre-Release Filtering: Option to include or exclude pre-release versions
• Complete Metadata: Extract tag, release name, date, changelog, download URLs, and author
• Version Tracking: Keep track of all releases and tags for your favorite projects

Input Parameters

• Repositories (stringList): GitHub repositories in "owner/repo" format (e.g., "facebook/react", "vercel/next.js")
• Start URLs (requestListSources): Custom GitHub release page URLs to scrape
• Max Results (integer, default: 50): Maximum number of releases to extract per repository
• Include Pre-Releases (boolean, default: false): Include pre-release versions in results
• Use Residential Proxy (boolean, default: false): Use residential proxies for better reliability

Output

Each release includes:

{
  "repoName": "facebook/react",
  "tagName": "v18.2.0",
  "releaseName": "React 18.2.0",
  "releaseDate": "2023-06-14T10:30:00Z",
  "isPrerelease": false,
  "body": "Release notes and changelog text...",
  "downloadUrls": [
    "https://github.com/facebook/react/releases/download/v18.2.0/react-18.2.0.tgz"
  ],
  "author": "gaearon",
  "url": "https://github.com/facebook/react/releases/tag/v18.2.0",
  "scrapedAt": "2024-01-15T10:30:00.000Z"
}

Use Cases

• Track dependency updates for your projects
• Monitor security releases and patches
• Automate notification workflows for new releases
• Build release history databases
• Compare version changelogs across projects
• Integration with CI/CD pipelines

Example Configuration

{
  "repositories": [
    "facebook/react",
    "vercel/next.js",
    "microsoft/vscode"
  ],
  "maxResults": 20,
  "includePreReleases": false
}

Notes

• GitHub's public API rate limits may apply if not using proxies
• Pre-releases are filtered by default but can be included
• Download URLs include all release assets (binaries, archives, etc.)
• The actor handles both old and new GitHub layout formats
• Changelog/body text is extracted from the release description

Performance

• Speed: Fast (Cheerio-based, no browser overhead)
• Cost: Low (datacenter proxies sufficient for GitHub)
• Memory: 256-512 MB recommended

Rate Limiting

GitHub may rate limit requests from the same IP. If you experience issues:

• Enable residential proxies
• Reduce the number of repositories monitored per run
• Add delays between requests

Built with Apify SDK and Crawlee using CheerioCrawler for efficient scraping.