🔍 RepoLens

Instantly see which GitHub repos are alive, stale, or dead — on any webpage.

Ever browsed an awesome list with 500 repos and wondered which ones are still maintained? This extension scans every GitHub link on the page and injects a color-coded badge right next to it. No clicking. No new tabs. Just glance and know.

How it looks

Every GitHub repo link on any page gets a badge:

Badge	Meaning
🟢 3d ago ★ 12k	Active — pushed within 3 months
🟡 6mo ago ★ 890	Aging — 3 to 12 months since last push
🔴 2y ago ★ 234	Stale — over 1 year, likely unmaintained
⚫ archived ★ 1.2k	Archived by owner
404	Repository deleted or renamed

Hover any badge for a detailed tooltip: description, topics, stars, forks, open issues, language, license, and exact push date.

Install

Chrome Web Store

Manual (Developer Mode)

git clone https://github.com/TobiiNT/repolens.git

1. Open chrome://extensions/
2. Enable Developer mode (top right)
3. Click Load unpacked → select the cloned folder
4. Done — visit any page with GitHub links

Settings

Click the extension icon to configure:

Display toggles — turn on/off each piece of info individually:

• Badge: last update time, star count, archived label
• Tooltip: description, last push, created date, stars, forks, open issues, language, license, topics

GitHub Token — optional but recommended for large pages:

	Without token	With token
Rate limit	60 req/hour	5,000 req/hour
Awesome list (200 repos)	❌ Throttled	✅ Instant

To create a token: GitHub Settings → Fine-grained tokens → no special permissions needed (public repo metadata is default).

Features

• Works everywhere — not just GitHub. Any webpage with github.com links (blogs, docs, Reddit, HN, etc.)
• Smart caching — 30-minute cache (memory + storage), won't re-fetch on page reload
• Batch processing — handles 500+ links without freezing the page
• SPA support — MutationObserver catches dynamically loaded content
• Dark mode — matches GitHub's dark theme automatically
• Zero permissions abuse — only calls api.github.com, no tracking, no analytics

Use cases

• Awesome lists — the original motivation. See at a glance which tools are maintained
• Documentation — spot dead links in READMEs and wikis
• Dependency audit — check if your stack's repos are still active
• Research — quickly filter active projects from abandoned ones

How it works

Page loads
  → Content script scans all <a href="github.com/..."> links
  → Extracts owner/repo, skips non-repo URLs (topics, explore, settings, etc.)
  → Batches API calls (30 concurrent) to GET /repos/{owner}/{repo}
  → Caches response (30 min TTL)
  → Injects badge + tooltip next to each link
  → MutationObserver watches for new links (infinite scroll, SPA navigation)

All data comes from a single API call per repo — no extra requests for tooltip info.

Tech

• Chrome Extension Manifest V3
• Vanilla JS (no framework, no build step)
• GitHub REST API v3
• chrome.storage.sync for settings, chrome.storage.local for cache

Project structure

repolens/
├── manifest.json     # Manifest V3 config
├── content.js        # Core logic: scan, fetch, badge, tooltip
├── styles.css        # All styles (light + dark mode)
├── popup.html        # Settings UI
├── popup.js          # Settings logic (token, toggles)
├── icons/            # Extension icons (16, 48, 128)
├── screenshots/      # README images
└── README.md

Contributing

Issues and PRs welcome. Some ideas:

• Firefox support (WebExtension API is nearly identical)
• Export scan results as CSV/JSON
• Sort/filter badges on page (show stale first)
• Configurable freshness thresholds
• npm package health check (last publish date)

License

MIT