run2-gh-search-api

name	run2_gh-search-api
description	How to query the GitHub Search API for PRs and issues with date filtering, handling pagination and unauthenticated access via Python urllib.

GitHub Search API via Python urllib

Overview

The GitHub Search API (/search/issues) supports date-range filtering and covers both PRs and Issues. No authentication needed for public repos (rate limit: 10 req/min, 60/hr unauthenticated).

Endpoint

GET https://api.github.com/search/issues?q=QUERY&per_page=100&page=N

Query Syntax for Date Range

# PRs created in December 2024
pr_query = "repo:cli/cli is:pr created:2024-12-01..2024-12-31"

# Issues created in December 2024
issue_query = "repo:cli/cli is:issue created:2024-12-01..2024-12-31"

Response Structure

{
  "total_count": 50,
  "incomplete_results": false,
  "items": [
    {
      "number": 123,
      "state": "open" | "closed",
      "created_at": "2024-12-05T10:00:00Z",
      "closed_at": "2024-12-10T15:00:00Z" | null,
      "user": {"login": "username"},
      "labels": [{"id": 1, "name": "bug", "color": "..."}],
      "pull_request": {   // only present for PRs
        "merged_at": "2024-12-10T15:00:00Z" | null,
        "html_url": "...",
        "url": "..."
      }
    }
  ]
}

Python Fetch Function (no external dependencies)

import json, time, urllib.request, urllib.parse

def fetch_search(query, per_page=100):
    """Fetch all items from GitHub search API with pagination."""
    all_items = []
    page = 1
    while True:
        encoded_q = urllib.parse.quote(query)
        url = f"https://api.github.com/search/issues?q={encoded_q}&per_page={per_page}&page={page}"
        req = urllib.request.Request(url, headers={
            "Accept": "application/vnd.github+json",
            "User-Agent": "stats-script/1.0"
        })
        with urllib.request.urlopen(req, timeout=30) as resp:
            data = json.loads(resp.read())
        items = data.get("items", [])
        all_items.extend(items)
        total = data.get("total_count", 0)
        if len(all_items) >= total or len(items) < per_page:
            break
        page += 1
        time.sleep(1)  # respect rate limit
    return all_items

Important Notes

• Search API max: 1000 results. For repos with >1000 monthly items, split query by date sub-ranges.
• incomplete_results: true means results may be truncated due to timeout (not rate limit).
• The pull_request key is present on all PR items; merged_at within it is null if not merged.
• Labels are returned as objects: {"id": int, "name": str, "color": str, ...} — extract with .get("name").