How to Monitor GitHub Releases Efficiently Using ETags and Python
A Python script using only the standard library can track GitHub releases for repositories you do not own by polling the REST API on a schedule. The script uses HTTP ETags and the If-None-Match header so that an unchanged release list returns a 304 Not Modified response, consuming no rate-limit quota when paired with an authorization token. A small JSON state file records previously seen release IDs, preventing false alerts on the first run and preserving existing state if a request fails. Unauthenticated requests are capped at 60 per hour per IP, while a personal access token raises the limit to 5,000 per hour. Pinning the X-GitHub-Api-Version header to a specific version ensures future breaking changes to the API do not silently affect the script.
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