/github-trending

name: github-trending
description: Fetch and display GitHub trending repositories and developers. Use when building dashboards showing trending repos, discovering popular projects, or tracking GitHub trends. Triggers on GitHub trending, trending repos, popular repositories, GitHub discover.

GitHub Trending Data

Access GitHub trending repositories and developers data.

Important Note

**GitHub does NOT provide an official trending API.** The trending page at `github.com/trending` must be scraped directly or use the GitHub Search API as an alternative.

Approach 1: Direct Web Scraping (Recommended)

Scrape `github.com/trending` directly using Cheerio:

import * as cheerio from 'cheerio';

interface TrendingRepo {
  owner: string;
  name: string;
  fullName: string;
  url: string;
  description: string;
  language: string;
  languageColor: string;
  stars: number;
  forks: number;
  starsToday: number;
}

async function scrapeTrending(options: {
  language?: string;
  since?: 'daily' | 'weekly' | 'monthly';
} = {}): Promise<TrendingRepo[]> {
  // Build URL: github.com/trending or github.com/trending/typescript?since=weekly
  let url = 'https://github.com/trending';
  if (options.language) {
    url += `/${encodeURIComponent(options.language)}`;
  }
  if (options.since) {
    url += `?since=${options.since}`;
  }

  const response = await fetch(url, {
    headers: {
      'User-Agent': 'Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; TrendingBot/1.0)',
    },
  });
  
  if (!response.ok) {
    throw new Error(`Failed to fetch trending: ${response.status}`);
  }

  const html = await response.text();
  const $ = cheerio.load(html);
  const repos: TrendingRepo[] = [];

  // Each trending repo is in an article.Box-row element
  $('article.Box-row').each((_, element) => {
    const $el = $(element);
    
    // Get repo link (e.g., /owner/repo)
    const repoLink = $el.find('h2 a').attr('href')?.trim() || '';
    const [, owner, name] = repoLink.split('/');
    
    // Get description
    const description = $el.find('p.col-9').text().trim();
    
    // Get language
    const language = $el.find('[itemprop="programmingLanguage"]').text().trim();
    
    // Get language color from the colored dot
    const langColorStyle = $el.find('.repo-language-color').attr('style') || '';
    const langColorMatch = langColorStyle.match(/background-color:\s*([^;]+)/);
    const languageColor = langColorMatch ? langColorMatch[1].trim() : '';
    
    // Get stars (total)
    const starsText = $el.find('a[href$="/stargazers"]').text().trim();
    const stars = parseNumber(starsText);
    
    // Get forks
    const forksText = $el.find('a[href$="/forks"]').text().trim();
    const forks = parseNumber(forksText);
    
    // Get stars today/this week/this month
    const starsTodayText = $el.find('.float-sm-right, .d-inline-block.float-sm-right').text().trim();
    const starsToday = parseNumber(starsTodayText);

    if (owner && name) {
      repos.push({
        owner,
        name,
        fullName: `${owner}/${name}`,
        url: `https://github.com${repoLink}`,
        description,
        language,
        languageColor,
        stars,
        forks,
        starsToday,
      });
    }
  });

  return repos;
}

function parseNumber(text: string): number {
  const clean = text.replace(/,/g, '').trim();
  if (clean.includes('k')) {
    return Math.round(parseFloat(clean) * 1000);
  }
  return parseInt(clean) || 0;
}

Approach 2: GitHub Search API (Official Alternative)

Use GitHub's Search API to find recently created repos with high stars:

interface GitHubSearchResult {
  total_count: number;
  items: GitHubRepo[];
}

interface GitHubRepo {
  full_name: string;
  html_url: string;
  description: string;
  language: string;
  stargazers_count: number;
  forks_count: number;
  created_at: string;
}

async function getTrendingViaSearch(options: {
  language?: string;
  days?: number;
  minStars?: number;
} = {}): Promise<GitHubRepo[]> {
  const days = options.days || 7;
  const minStars = options.minStars || 100;
  
  // Calculate date N days ago
  const date = new Date();
  date.setDate(date.getDate() - days);
  const since = date.toISOString().split('T')[0];

  // Build search query
  const queryParts = [
    `created:>${since}`,
    `stars:>=${minStars}`,
  ];
  if (options.language) {
    queryParts.push(`language:${options.language}`);
  }
  const query = queryParts.join(' ');

  const response = await fetch(
    `https://api.github.com/search/repositories?q=${encodeURIComponent(query)}&sort=stars&order=desc&per_page=25`,
    {
      headers: {
        'Accept': 'application/vnd.github.v3+json',
        'Authorization': `Bearer ${process.env.GITHUB_TOKEN}`, // Optional but recommended
        'User-Agent': 'TrendingApp/1.0',
      },
    }
  );

  if (!response.ok) {
    throw new Error(`GitHub API error: ${response.status}`);
  }

  const data: GitHubSearchResult = await response.json();
  return data.items;
}

**Note:** The Search API has rate limits (10 requests/minute unauthenticated, 30/minute with token).

Next.js API Route (Server-Side Scraping)

// app/api/trending/route.ts
import { NextRequest } from 'next/server';
import * as cheerio from 'cheerio';

export async function GET(request: NextRequest) {
  const searchParams = request.nextUrl.searchParams;
  const language = searchParams.get('language') || '';
  const since = searchParams.get('since') || 'daily';

  try {
    let url = 'https://github.com/trending';
    if (language) url += `/${encodeURIComponent(language)}`;
    url += `?since=${since}`;

    const response = await fetch(url, {
      headers: { 'User-Agent': 'Mozilla/5.0 (compatible)' },
      next: { revalidate: 3600 }, // Cache for 1 hour
    });

    const html = await response.text();
    const repos = parseGitHubTrending(html);
    
    return Response.json(repos);
  } catch (error) {
    console.error('Trending scrape faile