You can search for repositories using these repository search qualifiers in any combination.
To include forks in the search results, you will need to add fork:true or fork:only to your query. For more information, see "Searching in forks."
You can search for repositories by searching for specific content within a repository's README file with the in:readme qualifier. Besides using in:readme, you can't find repositories by searching for specific content within a repository. To search for a specific file or content within a repository, you can use the file finder, in:readme, or code-specific search qualifiers. For more information, see:
- "Finding files on GitHub"
- "Scope the search fields" section
- "Searching code"
Tips:
- For a list of search syntaxes that you can add to any search qualifier to further improve your results, see "Understanding the search syntax".
- Use quotations around multi-word search terms. For example, if you want to search for issues with the label "In progress," you'd search for
label:"in progress". Search is not case sensitive.
Scope the search fields
The in qualifier limits what fields are searched. With this qualifier you can restrict the search to just the repository name, description, README, or any combination of these. Without the qualifier, only the name and description are searched.
| Qualifier | Example |
|---|---|
in:name |
jquery in:name matches repositories with "jquery" in their name. |
in:description |
jquery in:name,description matches repositories with "jquery" in their name or description. |
in:readme |
jquery in:readme matches repositories mentioning "jquery" in their README file. |
Search based on number of issues with good first issue or help wanted labels
You can search for repositories that have a minimum number of issues labeled help-wanted or good-first-issue with the qualifiers help-wanted-issues:>n and good-first-issues:>n. For more information, see "Helping new contributors find your project with labels."
| Qualifier | Example |
|---|---|
good-first-issues:>n |
good-first-issues:>2 javascript matches repositories with more than two issues labeled good-first-issue and that contain the word "javascript." |
help-wanted-issues:>n |
help-wanted-issues:>4 react matches repositories with more than four issues labeled help-wanted and that contain the word "React." |
Search based on the size of a repository
The size qualifier finds repositories that match a certain size (in kilobytes), using greater than, less than, and range qualifiers.
| Qualifier | Example |
|---|---|
size:n |
size:1000 matches repositories that are 1 MB exactly. |
| size:>=30000 matches repositories that are at least 30 MB. | |
| size:<50 matches repositories that are smaller than 50 KB. | |
| size:50..120 matches repositories that are between 50 KB and 120 KB. |
Search based on whether a repository is private or public
You can filter your search based on whether a repository is private or public.
| Qualifier | Example |
|---|---|
is:private |
is:private pages matches private repositories you have access to and that contain the word "pages." |
is:public |
is:public org:github matches repositories owned by GitHub that are public. |
Search based on whether a repository is a mirror
You can search repositories based on whether or not they're a mirror and are hosted elsewhere.
| Qualifier | Example |
|---|---|
mirror:true |
mirror:true GNOME matches repositories that are mirrors and contain the word "GNOME." |
mirror:false |
mirror:false GNOME matches repositories that are not mirrors and contain the word "GNOME." |
Search based on whether a repository is archived
You can search repositories based on whether or not they're archived.
| Qualifier | Example |
|---|---|
archived:true |
archived:true GNOME matches repositories that are archived and contain the word "GNOME." |
archived:false |
archived:false GNOME matches repositories that are not archived and contain the word "GNOME." |
Search based on the number of forks
The forks qualifier specifies the number of forks a repository should have, using greater than, less than, and range qualifiers.
| Qualifier | Example |
|---|---|
forks:n |
forks:5 matches repositories with only five forks. |
| forks:>=205 matches repositories with at least 205 forks. | |
| forks:<90 matches repositories with fewer than 90 forks. | |
| forks:10..20 matches repositories with 10 to 20 forks. |
Search based on when a repository was created or last updated
You can filter repositories based on time of creation or time of last update. For repository creation, you can use the created qualifier; to find out when a repository was last updated, you'll want to use the pushed qualifier. The pushed qualifier will return a list of repositories, sorted by the most recent commit made on any branch in the repository.
Both take a date as a parameter. Date formatting must follow the ISO8601 standard, which is YYYY-MM-DD (year-month-day).
You can also add optional time information THH:MM:SS+00:00 after the date, to search by the hour, minute, and second. That's T, followed by HH:MM:SS (hour-minutes-seconds), and a UTC offset (+00:00).
Dates support greater than, less than, and range qualifiers.
| Qualifier | Example |
|---|---|
created:YYYY-MM-DD |
webos created:<2011-01-01 matches repositories with the word "webos" that were created before 2011. |
pushed:YYYY-MM-DD |
css pushed:>2013-02-01 matches repositories with the word "css" that were pushed to after January 2013. |
| case pushed:>=2013-03-06 fork:only matches repositories with the word "case" that were pushed to on or after March 6th, 2013, and that are forks. |
Search within a user's or organization's repositories
To grab a list of a user's or organization's repositories, you can use the user or org qualifier.
| Qualifier | Example |
|---|---|
user:USERNAME |
user:defunkt forks:>100 matches repositories from @defunkt that have more than 100 forks. |
org:ORGNAME |
org:github matches repositories from GitHub. |
Search by repository topic
You can find all of the repositories that are classified with a particular topic.
| Qualifier | Example |
|---|---|
topic:TOPIC |
topic:jekyll matches repositories that have been classified with the topic "jekyll." |
Search based on the number of topics a repository has
You can find repositories by the number of applied topics, using the topics qualifier along with greater than, less than, and range qualifiers.
| Qualifier | Example |
|---|---|
topics:n |
topics:5 matches repositories that have five topics. |
| topics:>3 matches repositories that have more than three topics. |
Search by license
You can search repositories by their license. You must use a license keyword to filter repositories by a particular license or license family.
| Qualifier | Example |
|---|---|
license:LICENSE_KEYWORD |
license:apache-2.0 matches repositories that are licensed under Apache License 2.0. |
Search based on the main language of a repository
You can also search repositories based on what language they're written in.
| Qualifier | Example |
|---|---|
language:LANGUAGE |
rails language:javascript matches repositories with the word "rails" that are written in JavaScript. |
Search based on the number of stars a repository has
You can search repositories based on the number of stars a repository has, using greater than, less than, and range qualifiers
| Qualifier | Example |
|---|---|
stars:n |
stars:500 matches repositories with exactly 500 stars. |
| stars:10..20 matches repositories 10 to 20 stars, that are smaller than 1000 KB. | |
| stars:>=500 fork:true language:php matches repositories with the at least 500 stars, including forked ones, that are written in PHP. |
