Overview GitScope integrates with the GitHub REST API v3 to fetch user profiles, repositories, commits, and language statistics. All API communication is handled through the useGitHub custom hook.
Base Configuration The API integration uses the official GitHub REST API endpoint:
const BASE = 'https://api.github.com'
API Endpoints GitScope uses the following GitHub REST API endpoints:
Function Endpoint Purpose getUserGET /users/:usernameFetch user profile data getReposGET /users/:username/reposList user repositories getCommitsGET /repos/:owner/:repo/commitsGet repository commits getLanguagesGET /repos/:owner/:repo/languagesGet repository languages
Authentication Bearer Token The API supports both authenticated and unauthenticated requests. Authentication is handled via Bearer token in the Authorization header:
const headers = () => { const h = { 'Accept' : 'application/vnd.github+json' } if ( token ) h [ 'Authorization' ] = `Bearer ${ token } ` return h }
Without authentication, the API rate limit is 60 requests/hour . With a Personal Access Token, it increases to 5,000 requests/hour .
All requests include the GitHub API version header:
'Accept' : 'application/vnd.github+json'
Request Pattern The hook implements a centralized request function that handles URL construction, query parameters, and error handling:
const request = async ( path , params = {}) => { const url = new URL ( ` ${ BASE }${ path } ` ) Object . entries ( params ). forEach (([ k , v ]) => url . searchParams . set ( k , v )) const res = await fetch ( url . toString (), { headers: headers () }) // Rate limit extraction (see below) // Error handling (see error-handling.mdx) return res . json () }
Query Parameters Query parameters are dynamically added to the URL:
Repositories with pagination
Commits with limit
Languages (no params)
getRepos ( 'username' , 1 , 30 ) // GET /users/username/repos?page=1&per_page=30&sort=updated&direction=desc
Rate Limit Tracking GitHub includes rate limit information in every API response header. The hook extracts these values:
const remaining = res . headers . get ( 'x-ratelimit-remaining' ) const limit = res . headers . get ( 'x-ratelimit-limit' ) const reset = res . headers . get ( 'x-ratelimit-reset' ) if ( remaining !== null ) { setRateLimit ({ remaining: + remaining , limit: + limit , reset: + reset * 1000 // Convert to milliseconds }) }
Rate Limit Object The rate limit state exposes three properties:
Number of requests remaining in the current window
Total request limit per hour (60 or 5000)
Unix timestamp (in milliseconds) when the rate limit resets
Visual Indicator The Header component displays a color-coded rate limit indicator:
🟢 Green → More than 50% available
🟡 Yellow → Between 20% and 50%
🔴 Red → Less than 20%
User Profile Response { "login" : "username" , "avatar_url" : "https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/123456" , "name" : "User Name" , "company" : "@company" , "blog" : "https://example.com" , "location" : "City, Country" , "bio" : "Bio text" , "twitter_username" : "handle" , "public_repos" : 42 , "public_gists" : 10 , "followers" : 100 , "following" : 50 }
Repository Response [ { "id" : 123456789 , "name" : "repo-name" , "full_name" : "owner/repo-name" , "description" : "Repository description" , "html_url" : "https://github.com/owner/repo-name" , "stargazers_count" : 42 , "forks_count" : 10 , "language" : "JavaScript" , "updated_at" : "2026-03-04T12:00:00Z" , "size" : 1024 , "license" : { "name" : "MIT License" }, "open_issues_count" : 5 } ]
Commits Response [ { "sha" : "abc123def456" , "commit" : { "author" : { "name" : "Author Name" , "email" : "[email protected] " , "date" : "2026-03-04T12:00:00Z" }, "message" : "Commit message" }, "author" : { "login" : "username" , "avatar_url" : "https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/123456" } } ]
Languages Response { "JavaScript" : 12345 , "CSS" : 5678 , "HTML" : 1234 }
The values represent bytes of code, not file count or percentage.
API Consumption Typical request consumption per user search:
1 request → User profile (getUser)1 request per page → Repositories (getRepos)1 request per repo → Commits when expanded (getCommits)Up to 12 parallel requests → Language statistics for chart (getLanguages)
Without a token, analyzing a single user can consume 15-20 requests (profile + repos + languages), leaving only 40 requests remaining in the hour.
Token Storage Personal Access Tokens are stored in browser localStorage:
const saveToken = ( t ) => { setToken ( t ) if ( t ) localStorage . setItem ( 'gh_token' , t ) else localStorage . removeItem ( 'gh_token' ) }
Tokens are stored client-side only. Never commit tokens to version control or expose them in client-side code.
API Documentation For complete GitHub REST API documentation, see: