star-history-chart

Topics in the source

• Star History Chart (self-hosted, never breaks)
• Why this exists
• What this skill sets up
• Workflow
• Step 1: Copy the script and workflow into the repo
• Step 2: Generate the SVG once, locally
• Step 3: Add it to the README
• Step 4: Commit

Add a "Stargazers over time" chart that renders from a static SVG committed to the repo and refreshes itself weekly — no external chart service, no broken images. GitHub now restricts the /stargazers endpoint to a repository's own admins and collaborators. Unauthenticated requests return {"message":"Requires authentication"}, which breaks every third-party live-chart service (star-history.com free tier, starchart.cc, etc.) for all repos. The only reliable fix is to generate the chart yourself with an authenticated token and commit a static image. Inside GitHub Actions, the repo's own GITHUBTOKEN can read its own stargazers, so the whole thing runs with zero secrets to configure. 1. scripts/generatestarhistory.py — fetches stargazers (authenticated), renders a clean, light/dark-adaptive SVG. 2. .github/workflows/star-history.yml — weekly cron + manual trigger that regenerates and commits docs/star-history.svg. 3. A README section pointing at the local SVG. The script needs the requests package: pip install requests. It resolves the repo from STARHISTORYREPO, then GITHUBREPOSITORY (set automatically in Actions), then the origin git remote — so no edits are required for it to work in

This is an excerpt. Refer to the complete source and its current requirements.