https://github.com/brown9804/github-visitor-counter
This repository provides a customizable GitHub visitor counter that tracks and displays the number of visits to your GitHub profile or repository. The counter updates daily using the GitHub Traffic API and writes the total views directly into the README file.
https://github.com/brown9804/github-visitor-counter
automation from-api github-counter github-traffic-api
Last synced: 1 day ago
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This repository provides a customizable GitHub visitor counter that tracks and displays the number of visits to your GitHub profile or repository. The counter updates daily using the GitHub Traffic API and writes the total views directly into the README file.
- Host: GitHub
- URL: https://github.com/brown9804/github-visitor-counter
- Owner: brown9804
- License: mit
- Created: 2025-07-07T21:29:09.000Z (3 months ago)
- Default Branch: main
- Last Pushed: 2025-08-09T00:50:21.000Z (about 2 months ago)
- Last Synced: 2025-08-09T02:36:46.065Z (about 2 months ago)
- Topics: automation, from-api, github-counter, github-traffic-api
- Language: JavaScript
- Homepage:
- Size: 294 KB
- Stars: 0
- Watchers: 0
- Forks: 0
- Open Issues: 0
-
Metadata Files:
- Readme: README.md
- License: LICENSE
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README
# Open Source Visitor Counter
Costa Rica
[](https://github.com)
[](https://github.com/)
[brown9804](https://github.com/brown9804)
Last updated: 2025-07-10
----------
> This repository provides a customizable GitHub visitor counter that tracks and displays the number of visits to your GitHub profile or repository. The counter updates daily using the GitHub Traffic API and writes the total views directly into the README file.
> [!IMPORTANT]
> The GitHub Traffic API only provides traffic data for the last 14 days. This project is designed to persist and aggregate daily view counts, allowing you to maintain a historical visitor total beyond GitHub's 14-day window.
## Features
- **Daily-updated visitor counting**: Fetches real visitor data from the GitHub Traffic API.
- **Markdown-based display**: Updates the README file with the total visitor count.
- **Open source and customizable**.
## How it works
> [!IMPORTANT]
> This counter is updated once per day (not real-time) and shows the total number of visits (including repeat visits) as reported by GitHub.
- A GitHub Action workflow runs daily to fetch visitor data from the GitHub Traffic API.
- The action updates the `README.md` file with the total visitor count and the refresh timestamp.
## How to use it
1. **Add the Badge to Your Repository**: Include the following markdown in your `README.md` file, between the `START BADGE` and `END BADGE` (included), as shown in the bottom.
2. **Create a Personal Access Token**:
- Go to **GitHub Settings** > **Developer Settings** > **Personal Access Tokens**.
- Generate a new token with `repo` access.
3. **Save the Token as a Secret**:
- In your repository, navigate to **Settings** > **Secrets and Variables** > **Actions**.
- Add a new secret named `TRAFFIC_TOKEN` and paste the generated token.
4. **Add the Pipeline**: This single pipeline will fetch the visitor count, update the badge in the `README.md` file, and push the changes back to the repository.
- Create a GitHub Actions workflow (`use-visitor-counter.yml`) in your repository to handle the visitor counter logic.
- Use the following content for the workflow, you can use [this pipeline as refence](https://github.com/brown9804/Cloud-DevOps-Overview/blob/main/.github/workflows/use-visitor-counter.yml).
```yaml
name: Use Visitor Counter Logic
on:
pull_request:
branches:
- main
schedule:
- cron: '0 0 * * *' # Runs daily at midnight
workflow_dispatch: # Allows manual triggering
permissions:
contents: write
pull-requests: write
jobs:
update-visitor-count:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- name: Checkout current repository
uses: actions/checkout@v4
with:
fetch-depth: 0
- name: Shallow clone visitor counter logic
run: git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/brown9804/github-visitor-counter.git
- name: Set up Node.js
uses: actions/setup-node@v4
with:
node-version: '20'
- name: Install dependencies for github-visitor-counter
run: |
cd github-visitor-counter
npm ci
- name: Run visitor counter logic (updates markdown badges and metrics.json)
run: node github-visitor-counter/update_repo_views_counter.js
env:
TRAFFIC_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.TRAFFIC_TOKEN }}
REPO: ${{ github.repository }}
- name: Move generated metrics.json to root
run: mv github-visitor-counter/metrics.json .
- name: List files for debugging
run: |
ls -l
ls -l github-visitor-counter
- name: Clean up visitor counter logic
run: rm -rf github-visitor-counter
- name: Configure Git author
run: |
git config --global user.name "github-actions[bot]"
git config --global user.email "github-actions[bot]@users.noreply.github.com"
- name: Commit and push changes (PR)
if: github.event_name == 'pull_request'
env:
TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
run: |
git fetch origin
git checkout -b ${{ github.event.pull_request.head.ref }} origin/${{ github.event.pull_request.head.ref }}
git add "*.md" metrics.json
git commit -m "Update visitor count" || echo "No changes to commit"
git remote set-url origin https://x-access-token:${TOKEN}@github.com/${{ github.repository }}
git pull --rebase origin ${{ github.event.pull_request.head.ref }} || echo "No rebase needed"
git push origin HEAD:${{ github.event.pull_request.head.ref }}
- name: Commit and push changes (non-PR)
if: github.event_name != 'pull_request'
env:
TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
run: |
git fetch origin
git checkout ${{ github.event.pull_request.head.ref }} || git checkout -b ${{ github.event.pull_request.head.ref }} origin/${{ github.event.pull_request.head.ref }}
git add "*.md" metrics.json
git commit -m "Update visitor count" || echo "No changes to commit"
git remote set-url origin https://x-access-token:${TOKEN}@github.com/${{ github.repository }}
git pull --rebase origin ${{ github.event.pull_request.head.ref }} || echo "No rebase needed"
git push origin HEAD:${{ github.event.pull_request.head.ref }}
- name: Create Pull Request (non-PR)
if: github.event_name != 'pull_request'
uses: peter-evans/create-pull-request@v6
with:
token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
branch: update-visitor-count
title: "Update visitor count"
body: "Automated update of visitor count"
base: main
```
## Files structure
- `README.md`: Contains instructions and displays the visitor count badge.
- `update_repo_views_counter.js`: Script to fetch visitor count data from the GitHub Traffic API and update the `README.md` file.
- `package.json`: Defines dependencies and scripts for the project.
- `LICENSE`: Specifies the license for the project.
> [!IMPORTANT]
>
> - Replace `` and `` with your actual values.
> - Use a Personal Access Token (PAT) with `repo` access as `TRAFFIC_TOKEN` secret in each target repository.
> - The action will trigger the visitor counter logic in the main repository and update the badge dynamically.
Refresh Date: 2025-07-16