Minimalistic client to access GitHub’s REST and GraphQL APIs.
Installation and setup
Install the package from CRAN as usual:
install.packages("gh")Install the development version from GitHub:
pak::pak("r-lib/gh")Authentication
The value returned by gh::gh_token() is used as Personal Access Token (PAT). A token is needed for some requests, and to help with rate limiting. gh can use your regular git credentials in the git credential store, via the gitcreds package. Use gitcreds::gitcreds_set() to put a PAT into the git credential store. If you cannot use the credential store, set the GITHUB_PAT environment variable to your PAT. See the details in the ?gh::gh_token manual page and the manual of the gitcreds package.
Usage
Use the gh() function to access all API endpoints. The endpoints are listed in the documentation.
The first argument of gh() is the endpoint. You can just copy and paste the API endpoints from the documentation. Note that the leading slash must be included as well.
From https://docs.github.com/rest/reference/repos#list-repositories-for-a-user you can copy and paste GET /users/{username}/repos into your gh() call. E.g.
my_repos <- gh("GET /users/{username}/repos", username = "gaborcsardi")
vapply(my_repos, "[[", "", "name")
#> [1] "after" "alda" "alexr"
#> [4] "all.primer.tutorials" "altlist" "anticlust"
#> [7] "argufy" "ask" "async"
#> [10] "autobrew-bundler" "available-work" "baguette"
#> [13] "BCEA" "BH" "bigrquerystorage"
#> [16] "brew-big-sur" "brokenPackage" "brulee"
#> [19] "build-r-app" "butcher" "censored"
#> [22] "cf-tunnel" "checkinstall" "cli"
#> [25] "clock" "comments" "covr"
#> [28] "covrlabs" "cran-metadata" "csg"The JSON result sent by the API is converted to an R object.
Parameters can be passed as extra arguments. E.g.
my_repos <- gh(
"/users/{username}/repos",
username = "gaborcsardi",
sort = "created")
vapply(my_repos, "[[", "", "name")
#> [1] "phantomjs" "FSA" "greta" "webdriver"
#> [5] "clock" "testthat" "jsonlite" "duckdb"
#> [9] "duckdb-r" "httpuv" "unwind" "httr2"
#> [13] "pins-r" "install-figlet" "weird-package" "anticlust"
#> [17] "nanoparquet-cli" "cf-tunnel" "myweek" "figlet"
#> [21] "evercran" "available-work" "r-shell" "Rcpp"
#> [25] "openssl" "openbsd-vm" "cran-metadata" "run-r-app"
#> [29] "build-r-app" "comments"POST, PATCH, PUT and DELETE requests
POST, PATCH, PUT, and DELETE requests can be sent by including the HTTP verb before the endpoint, in the first argument. E.g. to create a repository:
new_repo <- gh("POST /user/repos", name = "my-new-repo-for-gh-testing")and then delete it:
gh("DELETE /repos/{owner}/{repo}", owner = "gaborcsardi",
repo = "my-new-repo-for-gh-testing")Tokens
By default the GITHUB_PAT environment variable is used. Alternatively, one can set the .token argument of gh().
Pagination
Supply the page parameter to get subsequent pages:
my_repos2 <- gh("GET /orgs/{org}/repos", org = "r-lib", page = 2)
vapply(my_repos2, "[[", "", "name")
#> [1] "desc" "profvis" "sodium" "gargle" "remotes"
#> [6] "jose" "backports" "rcmdcheck" "vdiffr" "callr"
#> [11] "mockery" "here" "revdepcheck" "processx" "vctrs"
#> [16] "debugme" "usethis" "rlang" "pkgload" "httrmock"
#> [21] "pkgbuild" "prettycode" "roxygen2md" "pkgapi" "zeallot"
#> [26] "liteq" "keyring" "sloop" "styler" "ansistrings"Environment Variables
- The
GITHUB_API_URLenvironment variable is used for the default github api url. - The
GITHUB_PATandGITHUB_TOKENenvironment variables are used, if set, in this order, as default token. Consider using the git credential store instead, see?gh::gh_token.
Code of Conduct
Please note that the gh project is released with a Contributor Code of Conduct. By contributing to this project, you agree to abide by its terms.