How to get repository watchers count

[brunoLPZ]

I want to get the repository watchers count without having to call the listWatchersForRepo method. I'm using the listReposAccessibleToInstallation to get all repositories and I was expecting to get the watchers count from the watchers or watchers_count field. However this value doesn't seem to be correct. I've also was trying to use the subscribers_count field but it isn't available. If I use the github API directly I can see the correct count in subscribers_count.

I'm using the following dependencies:

"dependencies": {
    "@octokit/rest": "^18.6.7",
    "@octokit/auth-app": "^3.5.3"
  },
  "devDependencies": {
    "@octokit/types": "^6.19.0"
  }

[gr2m]

I think watchers_count is deprecated, it has been renamed to to stargazers_count. The names have been changed in the past in GitHub's UI, but APIs cannot change without an explicit new version, so here we are. subscribers_count is what you are looking for.

I was able to confirm that .subscribers_count is not est when using the GET /installation/repositories (List repositories accessible to the app installation) endpoint. In the OpenAPI Schema, the .subscribers_count response key is defined, but not required. But I don't know under what circumstances it is set. I tried registering an app with all permissions enabled, but the .subscribers_count was still not set.

At this point I suggest you reach out to support at https://support.github.com/contact, you can reference this issue. This might be a legit bug, and if not they will at least be able to explain the current behavior.

As an alternative to your problem, you can use GraphQL

const { view: { repositories: { nodes: repos } } } = await octokit.graphql(`{
  viewer {
    repositories(first: 100) {
      nodes {
        name
        watchers(first: 1) {
          totalCount
        }
      }
    }
  }
}`)

console.log(repos)

The challenge here is that you can only get the first 100, after that you need to paginate the GraphQL query, which is a bit more complicated than with the REST API. I can give you some pointers if you need them

[brunoLPZ]

For now I've just used the GET /repos/{owner}/{repo}/subscribers endpoint applying pagination with a single item per page. In this way, I just need to perform a single request that gets only one item. Based on the response headers I can determine the number of watchers as there is a link header that should contain something like <https://api.github.com/...?page=10&per_page=1>; rel="last". Parsing this gives me the last page number that should be the same as the watchers count.

Anyway, thanks for your clarification and suggestion @gr2m, I'll address this question to the github support.

[gr2m]

if you only use the response headers, you can use

const { headers } = await octokit.request("HEAD /repos/{owner}/{repo}/subscribers", { owner, repo, per_page: 1 })

Important caveat: the link header is not set if there is no 2nd page. So if the repository has 0 or 1 subscribers, your code might throw if you rely on the link header to be present.

[brunoLPZ]

Yes I've already taken into account the case where there's just 0 or 1 subscribers. But great point about the HEAD method. Thanks a lot!

[tik9]

@gr2m I tried your example from 23 july last year and get an undefined. This is what I have, can you help:

const graphqlAuth = graphql.defaults({headers: { authorization: 'token ' + process.env.ghtoken, },});});
const { repos } = await graphqlAuth(`{repositoryOwner(login: "tik9"){repositories(first: 2) {nodes {name watchers(first: 2) {totalCount}}}}}`)
console.log(repos)

[gr2m]

your code is incorrect, you are destructing repos from the result that graphqlAuth resolves to. But as you see in my code, it's

const { view: { repositories: { nodes: repos } } } = await ...