In this guide

Search Public Repositories

Find repositories by name, language, stars or topic.

Action referenceRead

What this action does #

First, connect GitHub in Services. Then open Actions → + → GitHub and choose Search Public Repositories.

More about this action

The query is GitHub's own search syntax, so qualifiers do the real work: `language:swift`, `stars:>500`, `topic:shortcuts`, `user:apple`, `pushed:>2026-01-01`. Words with no qualifier are matched against the name, description and README.

Two limits are worth knowing before an action is built on this. Search allows 30 requests a minute, far less than the rest of the API, so a multi-page fetch here is expensive. And no search returns more than 1,000 results however many pages are requested — narrow the query rather than paging further.

Sorting is by best match unless Sort By is set; setting Direction alone does nothing.

Inputs to fill in #

Open an input to choose its value. Keep a fixed value with Text, receive it from Shortcuts, ask when the action runs, or use an Earlier Step. Read how input sources work.

Query

RequiredText

Keywords plus qualifiers.

Example value (replace with your own):

shortcuts language:swift stars:>100

Sort By

OptionalChoice

Omit for best match.

Choices: stars, forks, help-wanted-issues, updated

Direction

OptionalChoice

Ignored unless Sort By is set.

Choices: desc, asc

Default: desc

Page Size

OptionalWhole number

1–100. GitHub silently clamps anything larger.

Example value (replace with your own):

Page

OptionalWhole number

Starts at 1. Bind this to a Shortcuts slot if you want to page from a Repeat loop rather than fetching several pages in one go.

Example value (replace with your own):

What comes back #

In the action editor, open Output → Returned Value to choose fields for your shortcut. These are the response fields described by the app; a service may omit an optional field or return an empty list. JSON File contains the full response.

Returned field	Type	Meaning
`total_count`	integer	Matches found, capped for paging at 1,000.
`incomplete_results`	boolean	True when the search timed out and the list is partial.
`items`	array	A list of values.
`items[].id`	integer	Whole-number value.
`items[].name`	string	Without the owner.
`items[].full_name`	string	owner/repo.
`items[].description`	string	Null when unset.
`items[].html_url`	string	The repository page.
`items[].clone_url`	string	HTTPS clone URL.
`items[].ssh_url`	string	Text value.
`items[].homepage`	string	Text value.
`items[].private`	boolean	True or false.
`items[].visibility`	string	public, private or internal.
`items[].fork`	boolean	True or false.
`items[].archived`	boolean	Archived repositories are read-only.
`items[].disabled`	boolean	True or false.
`items[].default_branch`	string	Usually main.
`items[].language`	string	The most-used language, or null.
`items[].topics`	array	Topic strings.
`items[].size`	integer	Kilobytes.
`items[].stargazers_count`	integer	Whole-number value.
`items[].watchers_count`	integer	A copy of the star count, not watchers.
`items[].forks_count`	integer	Whole-number value.
`items[].open_issues_count`	integer	Open issues plus open pull requests.
`items[].has_issues`	boolean	False means issues are turned off.
`items[].created_at`	string	ISO 8601.
`items[].updated_at`	string	Text value.
`items[].pushed_at`	string	Last push to any branch.
`items[].owner`	object	A group of named values.
`items[].owner.login`	string	Username.
`items[].owner.id`	integer	Whole-number value.
`items[].owner.html_url`	string	Their profile page.
`items[].owner.avatar_url`	string	Text value.
`items[].owner.type`	string	User, Organization or Bot.
`items[].license`	object	Null when the repository has no licence file.
`items[].license.key`	string	mit, apache-2.0, …
`items[].license.name`	string	Text value.
`items[].license.spdx_id`	string	Text value.
`items[].permissions`	object	What this token may do here.
`items[].permissions.admin`	boolean	True or false.
`items[].permissions.push`	boolean	Write access.
`items[].permissions.pull`	boolean	Read access.
`items[].score`	number	Relevance, only meaningful within one search.

Run it from Shortcuts #

Give the action a recognizable name and tap Save.
In Apple Shortcuts, add Shortcutify’s Execute Action and select the saved action.
Supply any Param or File slots you bound in the inputs, then run the shortcut.

If the result is unexpected, open Logs in Shortcutify, select the run, and inspect this step’s inputs and response.

This action supports multiple pages of results. Open its Fetch setting to retrieve more pages when one page is not enough. Each page adds a service request.

Advanced reference #

Request, permissions, and identifiers

Request: GET https://api.github.com/search/repositories

Action identifier: github.repos.search.v1

No additional per-action permissions are declared in the app’s catalog. The integration’s connection and account access rules still apply.

Input	Request key	Location
Query	`q`	query
Sort By	`sort`	query
Direction	`order`	query
Page Size	`per_page`	query
Page	`page`	query

GitHub API reference