Github Api Changes Github Developer Guide

We're releasing a couple of REST endpoints that enable you to retrieve additional information from an existing commit. To access the new endpoints you must provide a custom media type in the Accept header: The first endpoint allows you to get the list of branches where the given commit is the HEAD: The second one enables you to get a list of pull requests associated with the commit: During the preview period, we may change aspects of these APIs based on developer feedback. If we do, we will announce the changes here on the developer blog, but we will not provide any advance notice.

Discover how Python changed developer culture—and see why it keeps evolving. TypeScript just became the most-used language on GitHub. Here’s why, according to its creator. Unlock the full potential of the GitHub platform. See how Copilot coding agent and GitHub Mobile combine to help you tackle development tasks and urgent fixes, no matter where you are. The GitHub API is a powerful gateway that unlocks GitHub's full potential, allowing developers to create custom integrations, automate workflows, and build tools that extend GitHub's functionality.

Whether you're looking to streamline your development process, create custom dashboards, or build entirely new products on top of GitHub, the API provides a robust foundation for your projects. In this comprehensive guide, we'll explore everything you need to know about working with the GitHub API—from authentication and basic requests to building sophisticated applications that leverage GitHub's data and functionality. GitHub offers several API options, each serving different purposes: The REST API is GitHub's primary interface for programmatic interactions: GitHub's GraphQL API provides more flexibility and efficiency: Monitoring the GitHub API for drift and setting up alerting is essential to ensure your applications remain reliable and up-to-date as APIs evolve.

Automated drift alert monitoring lets you identify changes in the GitHub API quickly, reducing the risk of outages and unexpected issues in your integrations. This approach allows you to adapt to modifications in endpoints, data formats, and behavior with greater confidence and less manual effort. By using tools and systems for continuous API monitoring, you gain early warning about any alterations in the GitHub API that might affect your services. Solutions like real-time analytics platforms and open-source monitors can simplify tracking and provide instant notifications for any discrepancies, helping you maintain seamless workflow operations. Integrating alert mechanisms into your monitoring stack can make your GitHub API usage more resilient and transparent. GitHub APIs continually evolve to support new features and enhance security.

These changes can affect integrations, development workflows, and the reliability of applications that depend on consistent API behavior. API drift refers to discrepancies between the current behavior or specification of an API and its documented or expected behavior. For GitHub APIs, drift can occur when new endpoints are added, existing fields are renamed or deprecated, or behaviors are updated without synchronized documentation. A drift can be subtle, such as shifting response formats, or more obvious, like a breaking change to an authentication method. Tools and methodologies to detect API drift focus on monitoring endpoint changes, data structure adjustments, and parameter modifications. Monitoring for drift helps you catch unexpected variations early.

This is essential for integrations relying on stable interfaces and for minimizing disruption to automated workflows. Maintaining compatibility becomes more manageable when you detect and respond to drift promptly. Several key drivers lead to changes in the GitHub API: These changes may be intentional, part of an official release, or unintentional, such as undocumented updates or hotfixes. You should remain aware that both planned and unexpected changes can result in API drift and that the pace of updates can impact your applications differently depending on your integration depth. API drift can introduce errors, break existing integrations, and create debugging challenges.

If your application expects a specific data format or uses deprecated endpoints, undetected drift might result in failures or data inconsistencies. Automated systems and CI/CD pipelines may be especially sensitive to these changes. Failures in automated deployments or alerting workflows can result from unanticipated shifts in the API’s structure or behavior. Drift monitoring tools, such as API drift detection solutions, help reduce these risks. By alerting you to changes as they happen, you can prioritize fixes, update documentation, and ensure your systems adapt efficiently without service disruption. Maintaining up-to-date API documentation is often one of the biggest pain points for developers and teams.

Too often, the API spec changes but the docs lag behind, leaving developers with outdated or inconsistent information. This frustrates consumers of your API and increases support overhead. This is where automation comes in. By combining OpenAPI specifications with GitHub Actions, you can ensure your documentation is always in sync with your API changes. OpenAPI acts as the single reference point for your API design, keeping your docs consistent, accurate, and aligned with your API. GitHub Actions automates the workflow, validating your spec, building docs, and publishing to GitHub Pages in seconds.

This tutorial walks you through a working example of how to use GitHub Actions to auto-update your docs. Create integrations, retrieve data, and automate your workflows with the GitHub REST API. Get oriented to the REST API documentation. You can authenticate to the REST API to access more endpoints and have a higher rate limit. Follow these best practices when using GitHub's API. Learn about REST API rate limits, how to avoid exceeding them, and what to do if you do exceed them.

This describes the resources that make up the official GitHub REST API v3. If you have any problems or requests, please contact GitHub Support or GitHub Premium Support. By default, all requests to https://api.github.com receive the v3 version of the REST API. We encourage you to explicitly request this version via the Accept header. For information about GitHub's GraphQL API v4, see the v4 documentation. For information about migrating to GraphQL, see "Migrating from REST."

All API access is over HTTPS, and accessed from https://api.github.com. All data is sent and received as JSON. Blank fields are included as null instead of being omitted. Introduction: Big Shift Coming to GitHub Actions Runner APIs GitHub has announced a significant upcoming change to its Actions runner APIs that will directly affect developers and organizations relying on self-hosted or larger hosted runner instances. Starting July 3rd, 2025, GitHub will remove the visibility of larger hosted runner instances from a key API endpoint.

While this update aims to align the API with existing documentation, it also means developers and CI/CD pipelines relying on this data will need to make critical adjustments. Here’s everything you need to know. GitHub is preparing to roll out a breaking change that will affect the behavior of its orgs/{org}/actions/runners API endpoint. Currently, this API displays both self-hosted runners and larger hosted runner instances. However, beginning on July 3rd, 2025, GitHub will remove support for listing larger hosted runners in this endpoint. After this date, the endpoint will only show self-hosted runners, fully aligning the API’s output with GitHub’s current documentation.

This change is particularly relevant for developers and DevOps engineers who depend on automated scripts or tools that parse this API to gather information on runner availability and capacity. Larger hosted runners—typically used for more resource-intensive workflows—will no longer be visible through this API, which may lead to confusion or errors if systems are not updated accordingly. Organizations will need to audit their current automation processes, update any dashboards or monitoring systems that consume this endpoint, and prepare for the change to ensure business continuity. While the removal does not affect the use of the runners themselves, the loss of visibility into larger hosted runners via this API could lead to misaligned assumptions in infrastructure management or job queuing... Integrating with external services through programming interfaces can significantly enhance your applications. For developers, mastering the intricacies of these interfaces can lead to more feature-rich projects and increased productivity.

A clear understanding of API endpoints, authentication methods, and request-response cycles is critical for seamless interaction. Recent studies illustrate that nearly 80% of software development experts rely on API integrations to streamline workflows. This trend highlights the necessity of being proficient in accessing and utilizing these powerful tools. More than 15 million repositories are currently hosted on platforms like GitHub, showcasing a wealth of open-source projects that can be leveraged through their respective APIs. Prioritize learning RESTful protocols and JSON formatting, as they form the backbone of most modern APIs. Familiarity with authentication protocols, specifically OAuth 2.0, enables secure interactions while minimizing the risk of data breaches.

By employing best practices, such as rate limiting and pagination, you can optimize your API calls, reducing latency and avoiding throttling errors. Stay informed on the latest API documentation updates and community contributions to leverage additional functionalities. Engaging with forums and participating in open-source projects are excellent ways to expand your expertise and network within the developer community, ultimately enriching your programming capabilities. Accessing data on repositories and user interactions can enhance your coding projects significantly. To interface with the platform’s services, follow these crucial steps: Learn how to specify which REST API version to use whenever you make a request to the REST API.

The GitHub REST API is versioned. The API version name is based on the date when the API version was released. For example, the API version 2022-11-28 was released on Mon, 28 Nov 2022. Any breaking changes will be released in a new API version. Breaking changes are changes that can potentially break an integration. Breaking changes include:

Any additive (non-breaking) changes will be available in all supported API versions. Additive changes are changes that should not break an integration. Additive changes include: When a new REST API version is released, the previous API version will be supported for at least 24 more months following the release of the new API version.

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