Smokey
Smokey is a single-page developer dashboard for monitoring GitHub repositories. Open index.html in any browser, see every repo's last commit, latest release, open PRs, and open issues in one sortable table. External contributor activity is called out with attention badges so you know what needs a response without clicking around GitHub.
Features
- No auth required for public repos — loads real data from the GitHub API immediately, no login, no setup
- PAT optional — add a GitHub personal access token in Settings to unlock private repos and CI status; also required once you exceed ~15 public repos (unauthenticated API limit is 60 requests/hour, 4 per repo)
- Traffic chart — full history (not just GitHub's 14-day API window), area chart with logarithmic time axis (recent days expanded) and square-root value scale. No PAT needed — reads a daily snapshot from the
traffic-log branch, accumulated by a separate weekly GitHub Actions workflow, instead of GitHub's live traffic API.
- Private repo indicator — a lock icon next to the name of any private repo in the table
- Notifications ticker — an opt-in scrolling strip of your unread GitHub notifications, separate from the activity feed; see GitHub PAT below for the scope it needs
- Attention badges — one row for open PRs, one row for open Issues; only repos with external contributor activity appear; each badge links to the filtered GitHub page
- Sortable table — click any column header (Repo, Last Push, PRs, Issues) to sort; default is oldest push first
- Version + release date — shown under repo name so you can track what shipped and when
- Mobile-friendly — compact layout, no sidebars
Installation
Smokey is a static HTML file — no build step, no dependencies, no server.
Hosted (GitHub Pages):
Visit scottkirvan.github.io/Smokey — no install needed.
Self-hosted:
- Download
index.html
- Open it in any browser
Fork and host your own:
Fork the repo and enable GitHub Pages (Settings → Pages → Branch: main, folder: /).
Usage
- Open the dashboard
- Enter a GitHub username or org in the Settings panel
- Add repos in
owner/repo format, one per line
- Optionally add a GitHub PAT — see GitHub PAT below
- Click Load — data loads from the GitHub API and displays immediately
- Click any column header to re-sort the table
- Click a PR or Issue count to open the filtered GitHub page
- Click the traffic chart area to (eventually) open a detail view
GitHub PAT
A personal access token is optional for public repos but recommended if you have more than ~15 repos (unauthenticated requests are capped at 60/hour; each repo costs 4).
When you need a PAT:
- More than ~15 public repos in your list
- Any private repos
- CI status column
- Org repos protected by SAML SSO — the PAT must be authorized for that org
- Notifications ticker — needs a classic PAT with the
notifications or repo scope; fine-grained PATs can't call GitHub's notifications API at all
Traffic data doesn't need a PAT at all — it reads a daily snapshot from the traffic-log branch (a separate weekly GitHub Actions workflow), not GitHub's live traffic API.
Creating a PAT:
Classic PAT (simpler): github.com/settings/tokens → Generate new token (classic) → select repo scope.
Fine-grained PAT (more secure): github.com/settings/tokens → Generate new token (fine-grained) → select repositories → grant Contents: Read, Metadata: Read, and Actions: Read (needed for CI status).
The PAT is stored only in your browser's localStorage and is sent only to api.github.com. It is never transmitted anywhere else.
Troubleshooting
"Add a GitHub PAT in Settings" message shows even after adding a PAT
Hard-refresh the page (Ctrl+Shift+R / Cmd+Shift+R). The browser may be serving a cached version of the dashboard. If the message persists after a hard refresh, re-open Settings and confirm the PAT field is still populated — localStorage is cleared in private/incognito windows.
Traffic chart shows "No traffic history yet."
The chart reads a daily snapshot from the traffic-log branch, built by a separate weekly GitHub Actions workflow (log-traffic.yml). That branch/file may not exist yet, or your monitored repos may not have any rows logged yet — check whether log-traffic.yml has run at least once since the repos were added.
Some repos show 403
Without a PAT the GitHub API allows 60 requests/hour. Each repo fetches 4 endpoints, so more than ~15 repos will hit the limit. Adding any PAT raises the limit to 5,000/hour. Org repos with SAML SSO also require the PAT to be explicitly authorized for that org in GitHub token settings.
Release Please PRs appear as external attention badges
Release Please PRs are authored by github-actions[bot], which the dashboard filters out automatically. If they appear, do a hard-refresh — the browser may be running an older cached version that predates the bot filter.
Contributions / Contact
Credits
Smokey — Copyright (c) 2025 Scott Kirvan. MIT License.
Project Link: Smokey
CHANGELOG
TODO
