How to make unauthenticated requests to GitHub GraphQL API

Question

I am trying to use GitHub graph API to make requests and grab only the details I require ie. number of stars on some public repo. An unauthenticated request to get details on a repo using V3 (REST) api works fine, but it contains a million details of the repo which I don't need, I just need number of stars on the repo.

When I make following request:

query {
  repository(owner: "facebook", name: "react") {
    stargazers {
      totalCount
    }
  }
}

In javascript using fetch it responds 401 Unauthorized

fetch('https://api.github.com/graphql', {
    method: 'POST',
    headers: { 'Content-Type': 'application/json' },
    body: JSON.stringify({ query: '{ repository(owner: "facebook", name: "react") { stargazers(last: 10) { totalCount } } }' })
})
.then(res => res.json())
.then(res => console.log(res));

I need to show the data on a public website so I can't use a token from my GitHub account to authenticate.
Is there some way to make requests without authenticating, maybe some workaround. Or is it not possible?

Answer 1

The GitHub GraphQL API requires authentication to make requests.

You can either make an equivalent REST API call and discard the information which you don't need, or have server-side code make the request with an appropriate API token and proxy that information to your frontend code.

Note that if you expect your application to make a large number of total requests to the GitHub API, you'll probably want to go the latter route and implement caching.

Answer 2

If you will eventually need to make more than 5,000 requests/hour, then you can make an OAuth Github App, and have each user make the request from their own browser with their own key.