Github: Can I see the number of downloads for a repo?

Update 2019:

Ustin‘s answer points to:

• API /repos/:owner/:repo/traffic/clones, to get the total number of clones and breakdown per day or week, but: only for the last 14 days.
• API /repos/:owner/:repo/releases/:release_id for getting downloads number of your assets (files attached to the release), field download_count mentioned below, but, as commented, only for the most recent 30 releases..

---

Update 2017

You still can use the GitHub API to get the download count for your releases (which is not exactly what was asked)
See “Get a single release“, the download_count field.

There is no longer a traffic screen mentioning the number of repo clones.
Instead, you have to rely on third-party services like:

• GitItBack (at www.netguru.co/gititback), but even that does not include the number of clones.

• githubstats0, mentioned below by Aveek Saha.

• www.somsubhra.com/github-release-stats (web archive), mentioned below.
  For instance, here is the number for the latest git for Windows release

---

Update August 2014

GitHub also proposes the number of clones for repo in its Traffic Graph:
See “Clone Graphs“

---

Update October 2013

As mentioned below by andyberry88, and as I detailed last July, GitHub now proposes releases (see its API), which has a download_count field.

Michele Milidoni, in his (upvoted) answer, does use that field in his python script.
(very small extract)

c.setopt(c.URL, 'https://api.github.com/repos/' + full_name + '/releases')
for p in myobj:
    if "assets" in p:
        for asset in p['assets']:
            print (asset['name'] + ": " + str(asset['download_count']) +
                   " downloads")

---

Original answer (December 2010)

I am not sure you can see that information (if it is recorded at all), because I don’t see it in the GitHub Repository API:

$ curl http://github.com/api/v2/yaml/repos/show/schacon/grit
---
repository:
  :name: grit
  :owner: schacon
  :source: mojombo/grit # The original repo at top of the pyramid
  :parent: defunkt/grit # This repo's direct parent
  :description: Grit is a Ruby library for extracting information from a
  git repository in an object oriented manner - this fork tries to
  intergrate as much pure-ruby functionality as possible
  :forks: 4
  :watchers: 67
  :private: false
  :url: http://github.com/schacon/grit
  :fork: true
  :homepage: http://grit.rubyforge.org/
  :has_wiki: true
  :has_issues: false
  :has_downloads: true

You can only see if it has downloads or not.

---

Adam Jagosz reports in the comments:

I got it to work with

 curl -H "Accept: application/vnd.github.v3+json"   https://api.github.com/repos/:user/:repo/releases

A couple of things that I had wrong:

• I needed an actual Github release (not just git tag, even though Github does display those under releases, ugh).
• And the release needs an asset file other than the zipped source that is added automatically in order to get the download count.