To search for repositories, use the following search qualifiers in any combination.
Tips:
- This article contains example searches on the GitHub.com website, but you can use the search filters on your GitHub Enterprise instance.
- There's a list of search syntaxes you can add to any search qualifier to further improve your results.
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.
- jquery in:name
- Matches repositories with jquery in their name.
- jquery in:name,description
- Matches repositories with jquery in their name or description.
- jquery in:readme
- Matches repositories mentioning jquery in their README file.
Search based on the size of a repository
The size qualifier finds repositories that match a certain size (in kilobytes). For example:
- 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 the number of forks the parent repository has
There are two ways to find repositories with forks. The first specifies the number of forks a repository should have:
- forks:5
- Matches repositories with only five forks.
- forks:>=205
- Matches repositories that with at least 205 forks.
- forks:<90
- Matches repositories with fewer than 90 forks.
- forks:10..20
- Matches repositories with 10 to 20 forks.
The second way is to specify whether forked repositories should be included in results at all. By default, forked repositories are not shown. You can choose to include forked repositories by adding fork:true to your search. Or, if you only want forked repositories, add fork:only to your search. For example:
- github fork:true
- Matches all repositories containing the word "github," including forked ones.
- github fork:only
- Matches all repositories that are forked containing the word "github".
- github
- Matches all repositories that contain the word "github," that are not forks.
You can, of course, combine both options:
- forks:>500 fork:only
- Matches repositories with more than 500 forks, and only returns those 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.
Both take a date as a parameter, which must be in the format of YYYY-MM-DD--that's year, followed by month, followed by day. You can continue to use < to refer to "before a date," and > as after a date. For example:
- webos created:<2011-01-01
- Matches repositories with the word "webos" that were created before 2011.
- css pushed:<2013-02-01
- Matches repositories with the word "css" that were pushed to before February 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 qualifier. For example:
- user:github
- Matches repositories from GitHub.
- user:defunkt forks:>100
- Matches repositories from @defunkt that have more than 100 forks.
Search based on the main language of a repository
You can also search repositories based on what language they're written in. For example:
- 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 choose to search repositories based on the number of stars, or watchers, a repository has. For example:
- 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.
Sort the results
With any of the qualifiers above, you can also choose to sort on these properties:
- Number of stars
- Number of forks
- Date of last update
These can be in ascending or descending order.
