GitHub Stars

GitHub Stars Plugin

An Obsidian plugin that automatically displays GitHub star counts next to repository links in your notes — in both Reading View and Live Preview. Star counts can also be embedded directly into your markdown, making them visible outside Obsidian.

✨ Features

• Automatically detects GitHub repository URLs in your notes
• Displays the star count next to each GitHub repository link in both Reading View and Live Preview
• Embed star counts directly into your markdown files so they are visible outside Obsidian
• Caches star counts to minimize API requests
• Optional GitHub API token support for higher rate limits
• Supports abbreviated number formatting (e.g., 1.2k instead of 1,234)
• Commands to refresh, embed, and remove star counts

📸 Examples

When you include a GitHub repository URL in your notes, the plugin will automatically enhance it to show the star count:

Star counts displayed inline next to GitHub repository links in Reading View.

📦 Installation

1. Open Obsidian Settings → Community plugins
2. Disable Safe mode if prompted
3. Click Browse and search for "GitHub Stars"
4. Click Install, then Enable

⚙️ Configuration

The plugin can be configured in the Settings tab:

• Cache Expiry: Time in minutes before the GitHub star count cache expires (default: 1440 minutes / 1 day)
• Number Format: Choose between full numbers (e.g., 1,234) or abbreviated format (e.g., 1.2k)
• GitHub API Token: Optional personal access token to increase the API rate limit from 60 to 5,000 requests per hour. To generate one:
  1. Go to GitHub Settings > Developer settings > Personal access tokens
  2. Create a fine-grained personal access token or a classic token with access suitable for public repository metadata
  3. Give it a name and ensure it can access public repository metadata
  4. Click "Generate token"
  5. Copy the token and paste it in the plugin settings
• Update embedded stars on refresh: Enabled by default. When enabled, refreshing updates the star count written in the Markdown file next to a GitHub URL.
• Show token warnings on refresh: Enabled by default. When enabled, the plugin warns during manual refresh if the GitHub token is missing or invalid.

🔄 Refresh And Cache Behavior

• Rendering in Reading View and Live Preview uses cached star counts when the cache entry is still fresh.
• Cache expiry is lazy. When a cache entry expires, the plugin fetches new data the next time that repository is looked up. Expiry does not trigger a background refresh on its own.
• Refresh for current note is stronger than normal rendering. It fetches fresh star counts from GitHub for every repository in the active note even if those cache entries are still valid.
• If Update embedded stars on refresh is disabled, embedded star text is left unchanged and may show an older value than the refreshed star count.

💻 Commands

The plugin adds the following commands:

• Refresh for current note: Fetches fresh star counts from GitHub for all repositories in the current note and rerenders the note. If Update embedded stars on refresh is enabled, it also updates already-embedded star text.
• Refresh for all notes: Fetches fresh star counts from GitHub for repositories found across your entire vault. Duplicate repository links are deduplicated so each repository is fetched once per run. If Update embedded stars on refresh is enabled, embedded star text is updated across notes.
• Clear cache: Clears the cached star counts
• Embed star counts in current note: Writes star counts (e.g. ⭐ 1.2k) directly into the markdown file after each GitHub link. Re-running updates existing counts.
• Embed star counts in all notes: Writes or updates embedded star counts in every markdown note in the vault.
• Remove embedded star counts from current note: Strips all embedded star counts from the file
• Remove embedded star counts from all notes: Removes embedded star counts from every markdown note in the vault.

🧪 Development

• pnpm test: Runs the unit tests with Vitest
• pnpm build: Type-checks and builds the plugin bundle

❤️ Support This Project

You can support this project in a few simple ways:

• ⭐ Star the repo
• 🐛 Report bugs
• 💡 Suggest features
• 📝 Contribute code

📄 License

MIT © Flying Nobita