What is this?

This library defines an object oriented representation of the GitHub API. By "object oriented" we mean there are classes that correspond to the domain model of GitHub (such as GHUser and GHRepository), operations that act on them as defined as methods (such as GHUser.follow()), and those object references are used in favor of using string handle (such as GHUser.isMemberOf(GHOrganization) instead of GHUser.isMemberOf(String))

The library supports both github.com and GitHub Enterprise.

Most of the GitHub APIs are covered, although there are some corners that are still not yet implemented.

Sample Usage

GitHub github = GitHub.connect();

GHRepository repo = github.createRepository(
  "new-repository","this is my new repository",
  "https://www.kohsuke.org/",true/*public*/);
repo.addCollaborators(github.getUser("abayer"),github.getUser("rtyler"));
repo.delete();

Authentication

The library allows connecting to GitHub via several different authentication mechanisms.

Programmatically

To connect via Username and Password (not recommended):

GitHub github = new GitHubBuilder().withPassword("my_user", "my_passwd").build();

To connect via Personal access token:

// If you don't specify the GitHub user id then the sdk will retrieve it via /user endpoint
GitHub github = new GitHubBuilder().withOAuthToken("my_personal_token").build();

// If the token has access to an organization, you can specify it here.
GitHub github = new GitHubBuilder().withOAuthToken("my_personal_token","user_id_OR_org_name").build();

To connect via JWT token as a GitHub App:

GitHub github = new GitHubBuilder().withJwtToken("my_jwt_token").build();

To connect via GitHub App installation token on behalf of a user or organization:

GitHub github = new GitHubBuilder().withAppInstallationToken("my_installation_token").build();

Property file

This library defines a common convention so that applications using this library will look at a consistent location. In this convention, the library looks at ~/.github property file. The content of the files depends on the way you want this library to authenticate as shown below:

To connect via Username and Password (not recommended):

login=kohsuke
password=012345678

To connect via Personal access token:

oauth=4d98173f7c075527cb64878561d1fe70

To connect via Personal access token as a user or organization:

login=my_org
oauth=4d98173f7c075527cb64878561d1fe70

To connect via JWT token as a GitHub App:

jwt=my_jwt_token

Once your ~/.github property file is properly configured, you can obtain a GitHub instance using:

// if you are using the default configuration file
GitHub github = GitHubBuilder.fromPropertyFile().build();

// if you need to use a separate configuration file
GitHub github = GitHubBuilder.fromPropertyFile("location/my_custom_github.properties").build();

Environmental variables

This library also allows developers to authenticate GitHub with environmental variables.

To connect via Username and Password (not recommended):

export GITHUB_LOGIN=kohsuke
export GITHUB_PASSWORD=012345678

To connect via Personal access token:

export GITHUB_OAUTH=4d98173f7c075527cb64878561d1fe70

To connect via Personal access token as a user or organization:

export GITHUB_LOGIN=my_org
export GITHUB_OAUTH=4d98173f7c075527cb64878561d1fe70

To connect via JWT token as a GitHub App:

export GITHUB_JWT=my_jwt_token

Once exported, you can obtain a GitHub instance using:

GitHub github = GitHubBuilder.fromEnvironment().build();

Pluggable HTTP client

This library comes with a pluggable connector to use different HTTP client implementations through HttpConnector. In particular, this means you can use OkHttp, so we can make use of its HTTP response cache. Making a conditional request against the GitHub API and receiving a 304 response does not count against the rate limit.

The following code shows an example of how to set up persistent cache on the disk:

Cache cache = new Cache(cacheDirectory, 10 * 1024 * 1024); // 10MB cache
GitHub gitHub = GitHubBuilder.fromEnvironment()
    .withConnector(new OkHttpConnector(new OkUrlFactory(new OkHttpClient().setCache(cache))))
    .build();