Using pagination in the REST API

Learn how to navigate through paginated responses from the REST API.

In this article

About pagination

When a response from the REST API would include many results, GitHub will paginate the results and return a subset of the results. For example, GET /repos/octocat/Spoon-Knife/issues will only return 30 issues from the octocat/Spoon-Knife repository even though the repository includes over 1600 open issues. This makes the response easier to handle for servers and for people.

You can use the link header from the response to request additional pages of data. If an endpoint supports the per_page query parameter, you can control how many results are returned on a page.

This article demonstrates how to request additional pages of results for paginated responses, how to change the number of results returned on each page, and how to write a script to fetch multiple pages of results.

When a response is paginated, the response headers will include a link header. If the endpoint does not support pagination, or if all results fit on a single page, the link header will be omitted.

The link header contains URLs that you can use to fetch additional pages of results. For example, the previous, next, first, and last page of results.

To see the response headers for a particular endpoint, you can use curl, GitHub CLI, or a library you're using to make requests. To see the response headers if you are using a library to make requests, follow the documentation for that library. To see the response headers if you are using curl or GitHub CLI, pass the --include flag with your request. For example:

curl --include --request GET \
--url "https://api.github.com/repos/octocat/Spoon-Knife/issues" \
--header "Accept: application/vnd.github+json"

If the response is paginated, the link header will look something like this:

link: <https://api.github.com/repositories/1300192/issues?page=2>; rel="prev", <https://api.github.com/repositories/1300192/issues?page=4>; rel="next", <https://api.github.com/repositories/1300192/issues?page=515>; rel="last", <https://api.github.com/repositories/1300192/issues?page=1>; rel="first"

The link header provides the URL for the previous, next, first, and last page of results:

  • The URL for the previous page is followed by rel="prev".
  • The URL for the next page is followed by rel="next".
  • The URL for the last page is followed by rel="last".
  • The URL for the first page is followed by rel="first".

In some cases, only a subset of these links are available. For example, the link to the previous page won't be included if you are on the first page of results, and the link to the last page won't be included if it can't be calculated.

You can use the URLs from the link header to request another page of results. For example, to request the last page of results based on the previous example:

curl --include --request GET \
--url "https://api.github.com/repositories/1300192/issues?page=515" \
--header "Accept: application/vnd.github+json"

The URLs in the link header use query parameters to indicate which page of results to return. The query parameters in the link URLs may differ between endpoints, however each paginated endpoint will use the page, before/after, or since query parameters. (Some endpoints use the since parameter for something other than pagination.) In all cases, you can use the URLs in the link header to fetch additional pages of results. For more information about query parameters see Getting started with the REST API.

Changing the number of items per page

If an endpoint supports the per_page query parameter, then you can control how many results are returned on a page. For more information about query parameters see Getting started with the REST API.

For example, this request uses the per_page query parameter to return two items per page:

curl --include --request GET \
--url "https://api.github.com/repos/octocat/Spoon-Knife/issues?per_page=2" \
--header "Accept: application/vnd.github+json"

The per_page parameter will automatically be included in the link header. For example:

link: <https://api.github.com/repositories/1300192/issues?per_page=2&page=2>; rel="next", <https://api.github.com/repositories/1300192/issues?per_page=2&page=7715>; rel="last"

Scripting with pagination

Instead of manually copying URLs from the link header, you can write a script to fetch multiple pages of results.

The following examples use JavaScript and GitHub's Octokit.js library. For more information about Octokit.js, see Getting started with the REST API and the Octokit.js README.

Example using the Octokit.js pagination method

To fetch paginated results with Octokit.js, you can use octokit.paginate(). octokit.paginate() will fetch the next page of results until it reaches the last page and then return all of the results as a single array. A few endpoints return paginated results as array in an object, as opposed to returning the paginated results as an array. octokit.paginate() always returns an array of items even if the raw result was an object.

For example, this script gets all of the issues from the octocat/Spoon-Knife repository. Although it requests 100 issues at a time, the function won't return until the last page of data is reached.

JavaScript
import { Octokit } from "octokit";

const octokit = new Octokit({ });

const data = await octokit.paginate("GET /repos/{owner}/{repo}/issues", {
  owner: "octocat",
  repo: "Spoon-Knife",
  per_page: 100,
  headers: {
    "X-GitHub-Api-Version": "2022-11-28",
  },
});

console.log(data)

You can pass an optional map function to octokit.paginate() to end pagination before the last page is reached or to reduce memory usage by keeping only a subset of the response. You can also use octokit.paginate.iterator() to iterate through a single page at a time instead of requesting every page. For more information, see the Octokit.js documentation.

Example creating a pagination method

If you are using another language or library that doesn't have a pagination method, you can build your own pagination method. This example still uses the Octokit.js library to make requests, but does not rely on octokit.paginate().

The getPaginatedData function makes a request to an endpoint with octokit.request(). The data from the response is processed by parseData, which handles cases where no data is returned or cases where the data that is returned is an object instead of an array. The processed data is then appended to a list that contains all of the paginated data collected so far. If the response includes a link header and if the link header includes a link for the next page, then the function uses a RegEx pattern (nextPattern) to get the URL for the next page. The function then repeats the previous steps, now using this new URL. Once the link header no longer includes a link to the next page, all of the results are returned.

JavaScript
import { Octokit } from "octokit";

const octokit = new Octokit({ });

async function getPaginatedData(url) {
  const nextPattern = /(?<=<)([\S]*)(?=>; rel="Next")/i;
  let pagesRemaining = true;
  let data = [];

  while (pagesRemaining) {
    const response = await octokit.request(`GET ${url}`, {
      per_page: 100,
      headers: {
        "X-GitHub-Api-Version":
          "2022-11-28",
      },
    });

    const parsedData = parseData(response.data)
    data = [...data, ...parsedData];

    const linkHeader = response.headers.link;

    pagesRemaining = linkHeader && linkHeader.includes(`rel=\"next\"`);

    if (pagesRemaining) {
      url = linkHeader.match(nextPattern)[0];
    }
  }

  return data;
}

function parseData(data) {
  // If the data is an array, return that
    if (Array.isArray(data)) {
      return data
    }

  // Some endpoints respond with 204 No Content instead of empty array
  //   when there is no data. In that case, return an empty array.
  if (!data) {
    return []
  }

  // Otherwise, the array of items that we want is in an object
  // Delete keys that don't include the array of items
  delete data.incomplete_results;
  delete data.repository_selection;
  delete data.total_count;
  // Pull out the array of items
  const namespaceKey = Object.keys(data)[0];
  data = data[namespaceKey];

  return data;
}

const data = await getPaginatedData("/repos/octocat/Spoon-Knife/issues");

console.log(data);