Github.js provides a minimal higher-level wrapper around git's plumbing commands, exposing an API for manipulating GitHub repositories on the file level. It is being developed in the context of Prose, a content editor for GitHub.

This repo is now officially maintained by DevelopmentSeed, the people behind Prose.io.

Either grab github.js from this repo or install via NPM:

npm install github-api

Create a Github instance.

var github = new Github({
  username: "YOU_USER",
  password: "YOUR_PASSWORD",
  auth: "basic"
});

Or if you prefer OAuth, it looks like this:

var github = new Github({
  token: "OAUTH_TOKEN",
  auth: "oauth"
});

You can use either:

• Authorised App Tokens (via client/secret pairs), used for bigger applications, created in web-flows/on the fly
• Personal Access Tokens (simpler to set up), used on command lines, scripts etc, created in GitHub web UI

See these pages for more info:

Creating an access token for command-line use

[Github API OAuth Overview] (http://developer.github.com/v3/oauth)

var repo = github.getRepo(username, reponame);

Show repository information

repo.show(function(err, repo) {});

Get contents at a particular path in a particular branch. Set sync to true to get contents via sync method.

repo.contents(branch, "path/to/dir", function(err, contents) {}, sync);

Fork repository. This operation runs asynchronously. You may want to poll for repo.contents until the forked repo is ready.

repo.fork(function(err) {});

Create new branch for repo. You can omit oldBranchName to default to "master".

repo.branch(oldBranchName, newBranchName, function(err) {}); 

Create Pull Request.

var pull = {
  title: message,
  body: "This pull request has been automatically generated by Prose.io.",
  base: "gh-pages",
  head: "michael" + ":" + "prose-patch"
};
repo.createPullRequest(pull, function(err, pullRequest) {});

Retrieve all available branches (aka heads) of a repository.

repo.listBranches(function(err, branches) {});

Store contents at a certain path, where files that don't yet exist are created on the fly.

repo.write('master', 'path/to/file', 'YOUR_NEW_CONTENTS', 'YOUR_COMMIT_MESSAGE', function(err) {});

Not only can you can write files, you can of course read them.

repo.read('master', 'path/to/file', function(err, data) {});

Move a file from A to B.

repo.move('master', 'path/to/file', 'path/to/new_file', function(err) {});

Remove a file.

repo.remove('master', 'path/to/file', function(err) {});

Exploring files of a repository is easy too by accessing the top level tree object.

repo.getTree('master', function(err, tree) {});

If you want to access all blobs and trees recursively, you can add ?recursive=true.

repo.getTree('master?recursive=true', function(err, tree) {});

Given a filepath, retrieve the reference blob or tree sha.

repo.getSha('master', '/path/to/file', function(err, sha) {});

For a given reference, get the corresponding commit sha.

repo.getRef('heads/master', function(err, sha) {});

Create a new reference.

var refSpec = {
  "ref": "refs/heads/my-new-branch-name",
  "sha": "827efc6d56897b048c772eb4087f854f46256132"
};
repo.createRef(refSpec, function(err) {});

Delete a reference.

repo.deleteRef('heads/gh-pages', function(err) {});

var user = github.getUser();

List all repositories of the authenticated user, including private repositories and repositories in which the user is a collaborator and not an owner.

user.repos(function(err, repos) {});

List organizations the autenticated user belongs to.

user.orgs(function(err, orgs) {});

List authenticated user's gists.

user.gists(function(err, gists) {});

List unread notifications for the authenticated user.

user.notifications(function(err, notifications) {});

Show user information for a particular username. Also works for organizations.

user.show(username, function(err, user) {});

List public repositories for a particular user.

user.userRepos(username, function(err, repos) {});

List repositories for a particular organization. Includes private repositories if you are authorized.

user.orgRepos(orgname, function(err, repos) {});

List all gists of a particular user. If username is ommitted gists of the current authenticated user are returned.

user.userGists(username, function(err, gists) {});

var gist = github.getGist(3165654);

Read the contents of a Gist.

gist.read(function(err, gist) {

});

Updating the contents of a Git. Please consult the documentation on GitHub.

var delta = {
  "description": "the description for this gist",
  "files": {
    "file1.txt": {
      "content": "updated file contents"
    },
    "old_name.txt": {
      "filename": "new_name.txt",
      "content": "modified contents"
    },
    "new_file.txt": {
      "content": "a new file"
    },
    "delete_this_file.txt": null
  }
};

gist.update(delta, function(err, gist) {
  
});