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Article version: Enterprise Server 2.19
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Article version: Enterprise Server 2.19
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Gists

In this article

Authentication

You can read public gists and create them for anonymous users without a token. To read or write gists on a user's behalf, you need the gist OAuth scope and a token. For more information, see "Scopes for OAuth Apps."

Truncation

The Gist API provides up to one megabyte of content for each file in the gist. Each file returned for a gist through the API has a key called truncated. If truncated is true, the file is too large and only a portion of the contents were returned in content.

If you need the full contents of the file, you can make a GET request to the URL specified by raw_url. Be aware that for files larger than ten megabytes, you'll need to clone the gist via the URL provided by git_pull_url.

In addition to a specific file's contents being truncated, the entire files list may be truncated if the total number exceeds 300 files. If the top level truncated key is true, only the first 300 files have been returned in the files list. If you need to fetch all of the gist's files, you'll need to clone the gist via the URL provided by git_pull_url.

Custom media types for gists

These are the supported media types for fetching gist contents.

application/vnd.github.VERSION.raw
application/vnd.github.VERSION.base64

For more information, see "Media types."

List gists for the authenticated user

Lists the authenticated user's gists or if called anonymously, this endpoint returns all public gists:

get /gists

Parameters

Name Type In Description
accept string header

Setting to application/vnd.github.v3+json is recommended.

since string query

Only show notifications updated after the given time. This is a timestamp in ISO 8601 format: YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSZ.
per_page integer query

Results per page (max 100)
page integer query

Page number of the results to fetch.

Code samples

Shell 
curl \
  -H "Accept: application/vnd.github.v3+json" \
  https://api.github.com/gists
JavaScript (@octokit/core.js) 
await octokit.request('GET /gists')

Default response

Status: 200 OK
[
  {
    "url": "https://api.github.com/gists/aa5a315d61ae9438b18d",
    "forks_url": "https://api.github.com/gists/aa5a315d61ae9438b18d/forks",
    "commits_url": "https://api.github.com/gists/aa5a315d61ae9438b18d/commits",
    "id": "aa5a315d61ae9438b18d",
    "node_id": "MDQ6R2lzdGFhNWEzMTVkNjFhZTk0MzhiMThk",
    "git_pull_url": "https://gist.github.com/aa5a315d61ae9438b18d.git",
    "git_push_url": "https://gist.github.com/aa5a315d61ae9438b18d.git",
    "html_url": "https://gist.github.com/aa5a315d61ae9438b18d",
    "files": {
      "hello_world.rb": {
        "filename": "hello_world.rb",
        "type": "application/x-ruby",
        "language": "Ruby",
        "raw_url": "https://gist.githubusercontent.com/octocat/6cad326836d38bd3a7ae/raw/db9c55113504e46fa076e7df3a04ce592e2e86d8/hello_world.rb",
        "size": 167
      }
    },
    "public": true,
    "created_at": "2010-04-14T02:15:15Z",
    "updated_at": "2011-06-20T11:34:15Z",
    "description": "Hello World Examples",
    "comments": 0,
    "user": null,
    "comments_url": "https://api.github.com/gists/aa5a315d61ae9438b18d/comments/",
    "owner": {
      "login": "octocat",
      "id": 1,
      "node_id": "MDQ6VXNlcjE=",
      "avatar_url": "https://github.com/images/error/octocat_happy.gif",
      "gravatar_id": "",
      "url": "https://api.github.com/users/octocat",
      "html_url": "https://github.com/octocat",
      "followers_url": "https://api.github.com/users/octocat/followers",
      "following_url": "https://api.github.com/users/octocat/following{/other_user}",
      "gists_url": "https://api.github.com/users/octocat/gists{/gist_id}",
      "starred_url": "https://api.github.com/users/octocat/starred{/owner}{/repo}",
      "subscriptions_url": "https://api.github.com/users/octocat/subscriptions",
      "organizations_url": "https://api.github.com/users/octocat/orgs",
      "repos_url": "https://api.github.com/users/octocat/repos",
      "events_url": "https://api.github.com/users/octocat/events{/privacy}",
      "received_events_url": "https://api.github.com/users/octocat/received_events",
      "type": "User",
      "site_admin": false
    },
    "truncated": false
  }
]

Not modified

Status: 304 Not Modified

Forbidden

Status: 403 Forbidden

Create a gist

Allows you to add a new gist with one or more files.

Note: Don't name your files "gistfile" with a numerical suffix. This is the format of the automatic naming scheme that Gist uses internally.

post /gists

Parameters

Name Type In Description
accept string header

Setting to application/vnd.github.v3+json is recommended.

description string body

Description of the gist
files object body

Required. Names and content for the files that make up the gist
public body

undefined

Code samples

Shell 
curl \
  -X POST \
  -H "Accept: application/vnd.github.v3+json" \
  https://api.github.com/gists \
  -d '{"files":{}}'
JavaScript (@octokit/core.js) 
await octokit.request('POST /gists', {
  files: {}
})

Default response

Status: 201 Created
{
  "url": "https://api.github.com/gists/aa5a315d61ae9438b18d",
  "forks_url": "https://api.github.com/gists/aa5a315d61ae9438b18d/forks",
  "commits_url": "https://api.github.com/gists/aa5a315d61ae9438b18d/commits",
  "id": "aa5a315d61ae9438b18d",
  "node_id": "MDQ6R2lzdGFhNWEzMTVkNjFhZTk0MzhiMThk",
  "git_pull_url": "https://gist.github.com/aa5a315d61ae9438b18d.git",
  "git_push_url": "https://gist.github.com/aa5a315d61ae9438b18d.git",
  "html_url": "https://gist.github.com/aa5a315d61ae9438b18d",
  "created_at": "2010-04-14T02:15:15Z",
  "updated_at": "2011-06-20T11:34:15Z",
  "description": "Hello World Examples",
  "comments": 0,
  "comments_url": "https://api.github.com/gists/aa5a315d61ae9438b18d/comments/"
}

Not modified

Status: 304 Not Modified

Forbidden

Status: 403 Forbidden

Resource not found

Status: 404 Not Found

Validation failed

Status: 422 Unprocessable Entity

List public gists

List public gists sorted by most recently updated to least recently updated.

Note: With pagination, you can fetch up to 3000 gists. For example, you can fetch 100 pages with 30 gists per page or 30 pages with 100 gists per page.

get /gists/public

Parameters

Name Type In Description
accept string header

Setting to application/vnd.github.v3+json is recommended.

since string query

Only show notifications updated after the given time. This is a timestamp in ISO 8601 format: YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSZ.
per_page integer query

Results per page (max 100)
page integer query

Page number of the results to fetch.

Code samples

Shell 
curl \
  -H "Accept: application/vnd.github.v3+json" \
  https://api.github.com/gists/public
JavaScript (@octokit/core.js) 
await octokit.request('GET /gists/public')

Default response

Status: 200 OK
[
  {
    "url": "https://api.github.com/gists/aa5a315d61ae9438b18d",
    "forks_url": "https://api.github.com/gists/aa5a315d61ae9438b18d/forks",
    "commits_url": "https://api.github.com/gists/aa5a315d61ae9438b18d/commits",
    "id": "aa5a315d61ae9438b18d",
    "node_id": "MDQ6R2lzdGFhNWEzMTVkNjFhZTk0MzhiMThk",
    "git_pull_url": "https://gist.github.com/aa5a315d61ae9438b18d.git",
    "git_push_url": "https://gist.github.com/aa5a315d61ae9438b18d.git",
    "html_url": "https://gist.github.com/aa5a315d61ae9438b18d",
    "files": {
      "hello_world.rb": {
        "filename": "hello_world.rb",
        "type": "application/x-ruby",
        "language": "Ruby",
        "raw_url": "https://gist.githubusercontent.com/octocat/6cad326836d38bd3a7ae/raw/db9c55113504e46fa076e7df3a04ce592e2e86d8/hello_world.rb",
        "size": 167
      }
    },
    "public": true,
    "created_at": "2010-04-14T02:15:15Z",
    "updated_at": "2011-06-20T11:34:15Z",
    "description": "Hello World Examples",
    "comments": 0,
    "user": null,
    "comments_url": "https://api.github.com/gists/aa5a315d61ae9438b18d/comments/",
    "owner": {
      "login": "octocat",
      "id": 1,
      "node_id": "MDQ6VXNlcjE=",
      "avatar_url": "https://github.com/images/error/octocat_happy.gif",
      "gravatar_id": "",
      "url": "https://api.github.com/users/octocat",
      "html_url": "https://github.com/octocat",
      "followers_url": "https://api.github.com/users/octocat/followers",
      "following_url": "https://api.github.com/users/octocat/following{/other_user}",
      "gists_url": "https://api.github.com/users/octocat/gists{/gist_id}",
      "starred_url": "https://api.github.com/users/octocat/starred{/owner}{/repo}",
      "subscriptions_url": "https://api.github.com/users/octocat/subscriptions",
      "organizations_url": "https://api.github.com/users/octocat/orgs",
      "repos_url": "https://api.github.com/users/octocat/repos",
      "events_url": "https://api.github.com/users/octocat/events{/privacy}",
      "received_events_url": "https://api.github.com/users/octocat/received_events",
      "type": "User",
      "site_admin": false
    },
    "truncated": false
  }
]

Not modified

Status: 304 Not Modified

Forbidden

Status: 403 Forbidden

Validation failed

Status: 422 Unprocessable Entity

List starred gists

List the authenticated user's starred gists:

get /gists/starred

Parameters

Name Type In Description
accept string header

Setting to application/vnd.github.v3+json is recommended.

since string query

Only show notifications updated after the given time. This is a timestamp in ISO 8601 format: YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSZ.
per_page integer query

Results per page (max 100)
page integer query

Page number of the results to fetch.

Code samples

Shell 
curl \
  -H "Accept: application/vnd.github.v3+json" \
  https://api.github.com/gists/starred
JavaScript (@octokit/core.js) 
await octokit.request('GET /gists/starred')

Default response

Status: 200 OK
[
  {
    "url": "https://api.github.com/gists/aa5a315d61ae9438b18d",