Search · unsplash

GitHub’s search supports a variety of different operations. Here’s a quick cheat sheet for some of the common searches.

For more information, visit our search help section.

Basic search

This search	Finds repositories with…
cat stars:>100	Find cat repositories with greater than 100 stars.
user:defunkt	Get all repositories from the user defunkt.
tom location:"San Francisco, CA"	Find all tom users in "San Francisco, CA".
join extension:coffee	Find all instances of join in code with coffee extension.
NOT cat	Excludes all results containing cat

Repository search looks through the projects you have access to on GitHub. You can also filter the results:

This search	Finds repositories with…
cat stars:>100	Find cat repositories with greater than 100 stars.
user:defunkt	Get all repositories from the user defunkt.
pugs pushed:>2013-01-28	Pugs repositories pushed to since Jan 28, 2013.
node.js forks:<200	Find all node.js repositories with less than 200 forks.
jquery size:1024..4089	Find jquery repositories between the sizes 1024 and 4089 kB.
gitx fork:true	Repository search includes forks of gitx.
gitx fork:only	Repository search returns only forks of gitx.

Code search looks through the files hosted on GitHub. You can also filter the results:

This search	Finds repositories with…
install repo:charles/privaterepo	Find all instances of install in code from the repository charles/privaterepo.
shogun user:heroku	Find references to shogun from all public heroku repositories.
join extension:coffee	Find all instances of join in code with coffee extension.
system size:>1000	Find all instances of system in code of file size greater than 1000kbs.
examples path:/docs/	Find all examples in the path /docs/.
replace fork:true	Search replace in the source code of forks.

Issue search looks through issues and pull requests on GitHub. You can also filter the results:

This search	Finds issues…
encoding user:heroku	Encoding issues across the Heroku organization.
cat is:open	Find cat issues that are open.
strange comments:>42	Issues with more than 42 comments.
hard label:bug	Hard issues labeled as a bug.
author:mojombo	All issues authored by mojombo.
mentions:tpope	All issues mentioning tpope.
assignee:rtomayko	All issues assigned to rtomayko.
exception created:>2012-12-31	Created since the beginning of 2013.
exception updated:<2013-01-01	Last updated before 2013.

User search finds users with an account on GitHub. You can also filter the results:

This search	Finds repositories with…
fullname:"Linus Torvalds"	Find users with the full name "Linus Torvalds".
tom location:"San Francisco, CA"	Find all tom users in "San Francisco, CA".
chris followers:100..200	Find all chris users with followers between 100 and 200.
ryan repos:>10	Find all ryan users with more than 10 repositories.