GitHub Trending Developers API

What is the GitHub Trending Developers API?

Scrapes github.com/trending/developers (source: "github.com/trending/developers") for developers ranked in a since=daily|weekly|monthly window — not REST /search/users with followers:>1000 (all-time most-followed). Each row: rank, login, name, url, avatar, popularRepo/popularRepoUrl/popularRepoDescription, plus followers, following, bio, company, location, publicRepos, ownerType hydrated from GET /users/{login}. No Search relevance score field. Flat 2 credits. Page usually ≤25 rows (no cursor).

What you get

• Real github.com/trending/developers (not followers:>1000 search)
• since window + popularRepo from the page
• followers/bio/company/location for ranking and vetting

Platform limits

Honest ceilings from the upstream platform surface — not Captapi bugs. Unexpected truncation here is usually the platform, not us.

• Hydration uses GitHub REST /users/{login} per row — profile fields may be omitted if GitHub rate-limits.
• Page usually has ≤25 rows — no cursor.

Fill in the parameters below and copy a ready-to-run request, or open the live Playground to run it against your account (no API key paste).

curl "https://api.captapi.com/v1/github/trending-developers?since=daily" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer capt_live_..."
# or: -H "x-api-key: capt_live_..."

Example response

{
  "success": true,
  "data": {
    "source": "github.com/trending/developers",
    "since": "weekly",
    "totalReturned": 2,
    "developers": [
      {
        "platform": "github",
        "type": "developer",
        "rank": 1,
        "login": "getify",
        "name": "Kyle Simpson",
        "url": "https://github.com/getify",
        "avatar": "https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/150330?v=4",
        "popularRepo": "getify/You-Dont-Know-JS",
        "popularRepoUrl": "https://github.com/getify/You-Dont-Know-JS",
        "popularRepoDescription": "A book series on JS",
        "since": "weekly",
        "followers": 45221,
        "publicRepos": 74,
        "bio": "Human-Centric Technologist",
        "location": "Austin, TX",
        "ownerType": "User"
      },
      {
        "platform": "github",
        "type": "developer",
        "rank": 2,
        "login": "sindresorhus",
        "name": "Sindre Sorhus",
        "url": "https://github.com/sindresorhus",
        "avatar": "https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/170270?v=4",
        "popularRepo": "sindresorhus/awesome",
        "popularRepoUrl": "https://github.com/sindresorhus/awesome",
        "since": "weekly",
        "followers": 70000,
        "publicRepos": 1200,
        "ownerType": "User"
      }
    ]
  }
}

Billing metadata is returned in response headers: X-Captapi-Credits (credits charged), X-Captapi-Cache (hit or miss), and X-Captapi-Source. Failed requests (4xx/5xx) are never charged. See the full list of error codes in the error reference.

Response structure

A successful call returns success, cached, creditsUsed, and a data object with the following fields:

Parameters

Authentication: send your key as Authorization: Bearer capt_live_.... A typical call costs 2 credits. Pass cache=true for a free 24h cache hit; default is always fresh.

How it works

1. 1. Sign up — get 100 free credits, no card required.
2. 2. Create a key from your dashboard.
3. 3. Send one request to /v1/github/trending-developers and parse the JSON response.

Use cases

Frequently asked questions

More GitHub APIs