GitHub API (PyGithub)

Warnings

• breaking Github(login_or_token='token') is the old 1.x pattern. In 2.x use Auth.Token() and pass via auth= argument.
  Fix: auth = Auth.Token('ghp_...'); g = Github(auth=auth)
• breaking Commit.files used to return list[File], now returns PaginatedList[File]. len(commit.files) raises TypeError.
  Fix: Use commit.files.totalCount or iterate instead of len()
• breaking repo.compare().commits used to return list[Commit], now returns PaginatedList[Commit]. len() raises TypeError.
  Fix: Use .totalCount property instead of len()
• breaking datetime objects returned by the API are now timezone-aware (UTC). Comparing with naive datetime instances breaks.
  Fix: Add tzinfo=timezone.utc to any datetime instances used in comparisons
• gotcha pip install name is PyGithub (capital P, G) but the import is 'from github import Github'. The casing mismatch trips up agents constantly.
  Fix: pip install PyGithub && from github import Github
• gotcha g.close() must be called after use to close the underlying connection pool. Omitting causes ResourceWarning in tests.
  Fix: Use as context manager: with Github(auth=auth) as g: ...
• gotcha PullRequest.create_review_comment argument renamed from position= to line=. Keyword callers break silently.
  Fix: Replace position=N with line=N
• gotcha This is a community SDK, not an official GitHub product. GitHub has no official Python SDK. Agents often assume otherwise.
  Fix: For official REST access use requests + Authorization header directly, or use PyGithub.

Install

• pip install PyGithub Python

Imports

• Github, Auth

  from github import Github, Auth

  Package installs as PyGithub but imports as github. import PyGithub raises ModuleNotFoundError.

Quickstart

Minimal authenticated GitHub API call using PyGithub 2.x auth pattern.

from github import Github, Auth

auth = Auth.Token("your_token")
g = Github(auth=auth)

repo = g.get_repo("owner/repo")
for issue in repo.get_issues(state='open'):
    print(issue.title)

g.close()