Get Stargazers Count of GitHub Repository using ESP8266 NodeMCU

GitHub provides API that allows to manage repositories and get details of them, manage pull requests and issues, get a list of stargazers and watchers, etc.

This tutorial provides example how to get the stargazers count of GitHub repository using ESP8266 NodeMCU development board.

Components

Library

For JSON data parsing we will use ArduinoJson library. It can be installed using PlatformIO from the command line.

pio project init --board nodemcuv2
pio lib install "bblanchon/ArduinoJson"

Project configuration file:

platformio.ini

[env:nodemcuv2]
platform = espressif8266
board = nodemcuv2
framework = arduino
lib_deps = bblanchon/ArduinoJson@^6.17

GitHub API integration

In order to use the GitHub API we need to create token. Follow these steps to do this:

1. Sign in to GitHub and go to settings page to manage personal access tokens.
2. Click "Generate new token".
3. In the new page provide a note and then click "Generate token". After that you will be redirected back to settings page.

4. Copy an access token. It will be used to get the stargazers count of GitHub repository.

Code

Wi-Fi network credentials (SSID and password), GitHub API URL, API endpoint and token are stored as a constants. API endpoint to get a repository details is defined as follows:

/repos/{owner}/{repo}

In the setup function, serial communication is initialized and connection is established to a Wi-Fi network. To reduce memory consumption we use filtering to leave only required parameter in JSON document.

In the loop function, we send GET request to a server to retrieve a repository details. A token is provided in the Authorization header. The response is returned in JSON format. We deserialize a JSON data and print the stargazers count to the serial port.

src/main.cpp

#include <Arduino.h>
#include <ESP8266WiFi.h>
#include <ESP8266HTTPClient.h>
#include <ArduinoJson.h>

const char *WIFI_SSID = "YOUR WIFI NETWORK NAME";
const char *WIFI_PASSWORD = "YOUR WIFI PASSWORD";

const String ENDPOINT = "/repos/esp8266/Arduino"; // /repos/{owner}/{repo}
const String URL = "https://api.github.com" + ENDPOINT;
const String TOKEN = "YOUR GITHUB API TOKEN";

WiFiClientSecure client;
HTTPClient httpsClient;

StaticJsonDocument<16> filter;
StaticJsonDocument<64> doc;

void setup()
{
    Serial.begin(9600);

    WiFi.mode(WIFI_STA);

    WiFi.begin(WIFI_SSID, WIFI_PASSWORD);
    while (WiFi.status() != WL_CONNECTED) {
        delay(500);
        Serial.print(".");
    }

    Serial.println("Connected");

    filter["stargazers_count"] = true;

    client.setInsecure();
}

void loop()
{
    httpsClient.begin(client, URL);
    httpsClient.addHeader("Authorization", "token " + TOKEN);
    httpsClient.GET();
    deserializeJson(doc, httpsClient.getStream(), DeserializationOption::Filter(filter));
    httpsClient.end();

    long stargazersCount = doc["stargazers_count"];
    Serial.println(stargazersCount);

    delay(5000);
}

Build project

Run the following command to build project and upload program to the ESP8266 NodeMCU:

pio run --target upload

Testing

Open the Serial Monitor to see the stargazers count of GitHub repository.