Daily Stars Explorer

Daily Stars Explorer is a self‑hosted analytics platform that aggregates the complete star history of GitHub repositories beyond the 40 k‑star limit imposed by the public REST API. The application is split into a lightweight Go backend that queries GitHub’s GraphQL endpoint and a React‑based frontend that renders interactive time‑series visualisations. Together they provide a real‑time, browser‑friendly dashboard that can be deployed behind any reverse proxy or container orchestrator.

Technical Stack

• Backend – written in Go 1.22+, leveraging the github.com/google/go-github GraphQL client for efficient batched queries. The service exposes a minimal HTTP API that the frontend consumes via fetch. All configuration is sourced from environment variables, making it trivial to inject credentials or switch providers.
• Frontend – a single‑page application built with Vite and React, using chart.js for chart rendering. The UI is fully client‑side rendered; the server only serves static assets and the API proxy.
• Data Layer – no external database is required; data is cached in memory and persisted to a local leveldb instance for quick restarts. The cache can be swapped out with any key‑value store that implements the cache.Store interface.
• Containerization – a prebuilt Docker image (ghcr.io/emanuelef/daily-stars-explorer) is available, and the repository contains a Dockerfile that builds from scratch using multi‑stage compilation for minimal size.

Core Capabilities

• Full Star History – retrieves every star event via GraphQL pagination, storing timestamps and user IDs for downstream analysis.
• Multi‑Provider Support – while GitHub is the default, the backend accepts a list of provider tokens (e.g., GitLab) that can be queried in parallel, exposing a unified API.
• Comparison View – the UI allows side‑by‑side comparison of two repositories, calculating differential metrics such as daily growth rate or cumulative change.
• Webhook Integration – developers can register a GitHub webhook to trigger an immediate cache refresh, ensuring near real‑time accuracy.
• Export API – endpoints return CSV or JSON payloads, enabling integration with BI tools or custom dashboards.

Deployment & Infrastructure

Running Daily Stars Explorer requires only Docker (or a Go runtime for manual builds). The container listens on port 8080 and expects an environment file containing a GitHub PAT with read:user and repo:status scopes. For production, the image can be deployed as a sidecar in Kubernetes or within Docker Compose alongside an NGINX reverse proxy. The service scales horizontally by running multiple instances behind a load balancer; the in‑memory cache is per‑instance, so cross‑node consistency can be achieved via a shared Redis store if needed.

Integration & Extensibility

The application exposes a clean REST API (/api/*) that can be consumed by external scripts or dashboards. Plugin hooks are available at the GraphQL query layer, allowing custom data enrichment (e.g., adding issue or PR counts). The frontend is built with modular components, so developers can fork the UI and swap out charting libraries or add new visualisations without touching the backend.

Developer Experience

Configuration is intentionally minimal: a single .env file and optional provider tokens. The documentation is concise yet thorough, with examples for Docker, local Go execution, and the Vite dev server. Community support is modest but active; issues are triaged promptly, and pull requests that improve caching or add new data sources are welcomed. The project’s MIT license removes any licensing friction, making it safe to embed in internal tooling or redistribute within a company.

Use Cases

• Repository Health Monitoring – teams can track star trends to detect sudden drops or spikes, correlating them with releases or PR merges.
• Open‑Source Portfolio Analytics – maintainers can showcase sustained community engagement to potential employers or funding bodies.
• Competitive Analysis – product managers compare competitor repos, visualising growth trajectories over time.
• Custom KPI Dashboards – the export API enables integration with Grafana or Prometheus for real‑time alerts on star velocity.

Advantages

Daily Stars Explorer offers a lightweight, self‑hosted alternative to cloud analytics services. Its Go backend guarantees low latency and high concurrency, while the in‑memory cache keeps memory usage predictable. Unlike GitHub’s public API limits, it retrieves the full star timeline without additional cost or rate‑limit constraints. The open source nature and permissive license mean developers can modify the data pipeline or UI to fit niche requirements, giving them complete control over privacy and deployment strategy.