Github API: Getting topics of a Github repository

Question

Github API documentation give instructions to filter repositories by topics. Is there a way to use the API to get the topics from a specific repo?

score 12 · Answer 1 · edited Oct 06 '20 at 04:18

You can do this with the Github GraphQL API

Query:

{
  repository(owner: "twbs", name: "bootstrap") {
    repositoryTopics(first: 10) {
      edges {
        node {
          topic {
            name
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

This will return the first 10 topics and the name for each as shown below.
Response:

{
  "data": {
    "repository": {
      "repositoryTopics": {
        "edges": [
          {
            "node": {
              "topic": {
                "name": "css"
              }
            }
          },
          {
            "node": {
              "topic": {
                "name": "bootstrap"
              }
            }
          },
          {
            "node": {
              "topic": {
                "name": "javascript"
              }
            }
          },
          {
            "node": {
              "topic": {
                "name": "html"
              }
            }
          }
        ]
      }
    }
  }
}

Test it out in the GitHub GraphQL Explorer

score 9 · Answer 2 · edited May 27 '21 at 13:25

You can do this easily with Github API (it's currently in "preview mode"):

curl -H "Accept: application/vnd.github.mercy-preview+json" https://api.github.com/repos/twbs/bootstrap/topics
{
  "names": [
    "css",
    "bootstrap",
    "javascript",
    "html",
    "jekyll-site",
    "scss",
    "css-framework",
    "sass"
  ]
}

You need to include extra header Accept: application/vnd.github.mercy-preview+json.

There is one "but", since it's in "preview mode" it's not supported for production use (please read "Note" and "Warning" sections in link below).

See also:

https://docs.github.com/en/rest/reference/repos#get-a-repository

Note that this is not in preview anymore: https://github.blog/changelog/2021-10-14-rest-api-preview-promotions/ — rethab, Oct 20 '21 at 08:00

score 8 · Answer 3 · edited May 24 '21 at 12:45

I don't know that there is a way to just get the topics for a repository, but if you do a get for a repository, the repository json object that is returned will have a topics property that is an array of that repositories topics.

At the top of that page of documentation, you will notice that in order to have the topics returned you will need to add a specific header in your GET request: "Accept":"application/vnd.github.mercy-preview+json"

Hope this helps!

score 2 · Answer 4 · edited May 11 '17 at 17:29

2

I faced similar problem, so I made a node module that only require one line of code to do that which is

var github_topics = require('github-topics');
var topics = github_topics.gettopics('url_of_repo');

for example

var topics = github_topics.gettopics('https://github.com/Aniket965/blog');

It will return array of topics of that github repository , link to that node module is NPM

edited May 11 '17 at 17:29

Manfred Radlwimmer

13,257
13
53
62

answered May 11 '17 at 15:51

Aniket Sharma

21
3

4

Bringing microdependencies to a whole new level! ;) – Resigned June 2023 Aug 25 '17 at 05:36

score 2 · Answer 5 · answered Nov 30 '18 at 04:58

2

I added the fetch with Accept Headers:

fetch("https://api.github.com/users/lucksp/repos", 
   {
    method: "GET",
    headers: {
    Accept: "application/vnd.github.mercy-preview+json"
   }
})

answered Nov 30 '18 at 04:58

Phil Lucks

2,704
6
31
57

Github API: Getting topics of a Github repository

5 Answers5

Linked