Star history

Star-history charts are back — as a GitHub Action. GitHub restricted the stargazers API to repo admins and collaborators in June 2026, which killed every hosted star-chart service, including shieldcn's own /chart/github/stars/... endpoint. Inside a GitHub Actions workflow, the automatic GITHUB_TOKEN is repo-scoped with collaborator access — so the data is still fully available there. The shieldcn starchart action fetches your star history on a schedule, renders the same shadcn-styled chart card as every other shieldcn chart, and commits the SVG to your repo as shieldcn[bot].

Quick start

Add a workflow that runs the action on a daily cron. The action writes a dark/light SVG pair and pushes the result, so the only permission it needs is contents: write.

# .github/workflows/star-chart.yml
name: Star chart

on:
  schedule:
    - cron: "0 6 * * *"
  workflow_dispatch:

permissions:
  contents: write

jobs:
  star-chart:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: jal-co/shieldcn@v1
        with:
          theme: violet

Then embed the generated pair in your README. GitHub swaps the image with the viewer's color scheme:

<picture>
  <source media="(prefers-color-scheme: dark)" srcset=".github/shieldcn/star-chart-dark.svg">
  <img alt="Star history" src=".github/shieldcn/star-chart-light.svg">
</picture>

The exact snippet for your configuration is also exposed as the snippet output, and the workflow summary prints it after each run.

Inputs

All chart styling matches the chart query parameters, passed as action inputs instead of a URL.

Input	Default	Description
repo	current repo	Repository to chart, as owner/repo
token	github.token	Token with read access to the repo's stargazers
output	.github/shieldcn/star-chart.svg	Output path; mode: both inserts -dark/-light before .svg
mode	both	dark, light, or both
theme	—	Accent theme (zinc, slate, blue, green, rose, orange, violet, purple, cyan, emerald)
color	—	Explicit accent hex without #, wins over theme
background	mode surface	transparent or a hex color without #
border	true	Draw the rounded card border
area	true	Show the gradient area fill under the line
width / height	800 / 400	Chart size in px
title / subtitle	owner/repo / star count	Card text
font	inter	Font stack keyword, same as badges
logo	true	Show the shieldcn corner watermark
commit	true	Commit and push the chart as shieldcn[bot]
commit-message	chore: update star chart [skip ci]	Commit message

Outputs

Use the outputs to wire the chart into follow-up steps, for example a job summary or a README updater.

Output	Description
files	Newline-separated list of written SVG paths
stars	Current total star count
snippet	Ready-to-paste README embed (a <picture> pair when mode is both)
committed	Whether a commit was pushed (true/false)

Charting another repository

The default GITHUB_TOKEN only reads the current repository's stargazers. To chart a different repo you own, pass a personal access token with read access to that repo:

- uses: jal-co/shieldcn@v1
  with:
    repo: your-org/other-repo
    token: ${{ secrets.STARCHART_TOKEN }}

You can't chart arbitrary third-party repos — that's exactly the access GitHub removed.

How it works

The action reconstructs the curve the same way starcharts does. Repos under roughly 3,000 stars get an exact curve: every stargazer page is fetched and the sorted timestamps are sampled down to 30 points. Larger repos sample pages evenly and read the first starred_at of each, up to GitHub's 400-page (40,000-star) pagination cap. The final point is anchored at "now" with the live total, so the chart never undercounts. Rendering goes through the same chart engine as every hosted shieldcn chart.

Data source

GitHub stargazers API with the star+json media type, authenticated by the workflow's own token. No data leaves your repository — the action calls the GitHub API and commits the SVG locally, with no shieldcn servers involved.