Preview the New Search API

Today we’re excited to announce a brand new Search API. Whether you’re searching for code, repositories, issues, or users, all the query abilities of github.com are now available via the API as well.

Maybe you want to find popular Tetris implementations written in Assembly. We’ve got you covered. Or perhaps you’re looking for new gems that are using Octokit.rb. No problem. The possibilities are endless.

Highlights

On github.com, we enjoy the context provided by code snippets and highlights in search results.

We want API consumers to have access to that information as well. So, API requests can opt to receive those text fragments in the response. Each fragment is accompanied by numeric offsets identifying the exact location of each matching search term.

Preview period

We’re making this new API available today for developers to preview. We think developers are going to love it, but we want to get your feedback before we declare the Search API “final” and “unchangeable.” We expect the preview period to last for roughly 60 days.

As we discover opportunities to improve this new API during the preview period, we may ship changes that break clients using the preview version of the API. We want to iterate quickly. To do so, we will announce any changes here (on the developer blog), but we will not provide any advance notice.

At the end of preview period, the Search API will become an official component of GitHub API v3. At that point, the new Search API will be stable and suitable for production use.

What about the old search API?

The legacy search API is still available. Many existing clients depend on it, and it is not changing in any way. While the new API offers much more functionality, the legacy search endpoints remain an official part of GitHub API v3.

Take it for a spin

We hope you’ll kick the tires and send us your feedback. Happy searching finding!