github-activity-exporter

GitHub pull request and issue activity exporter — collects PR and issue metrics from the GitHub API, including Renovate Dependency Dashboard state, and pushes them via OTLP to any OpenTelemetry-compatible backend (Grafana Cloud, Prometheus with OTLP receiver, Datadog, etc.).

Features

Pushes PR and issue metrics via OTLP (HTTP or gRPC) as primary output
Optional Prometheus /metrics bridge for scrape-based setups (disabled by default)
Metrics conform to the OTel semantic convention registry and are validated by Weaver in CI
Multi-arch Docker image published to GHCR
Fully automated releases via semantic-release — no manual tagging

Quick Start

Create config.yaml:

export:
  otlp:
    endpoint: http://my-otel-collector:4318
targets:
  - name: my-org
    orgs:
      - org: my-org

With no auth block the target uses the GITHUB_TOKEN env var as a PAT.

Run the image with the config mounted at /etc/github-activity-exporter/config.yaml:

docker run --rm \
  -e GITHUB_TOKEN=ghp_... \
  -v "$PWD/config.yaml:/etc/github-activity-exporter/config.yaml:ro" \
  ghcr.io/gjed/github-activity-exporter:latest

Metrics are pushed to the OTLP endpoint after each collection cycle (default: every 5 minutes).

To also expose a Prometheus scrape endpoint, set export.prometheus.enabled: true in the config and add -p 9090:9090.

Installation

Docker

docker pull ghcr.io/gjed/github-activity-exporter:latest

From source

go install github.com/gjed/github-activity-exporter/cmd/github-activity-exporter@latest

Configuration

The exporter takes no flags other than --version. Targets, GitHub auth and export settings come from a YAML file.

Config file

The path is read from CONFIG_FILE. It defaults to config.yaml in the working directory, and to /etc/github-activity-exporter/config.yaml in the Docker image.

collection_interval: 5m           # how often to collect and push metrics
export:
  otlp:
    endpoint: https://otlp.example.com:4318  # required; http: full URL, grpc: host:port without scheme
    protocol: http                # http or grpc
    headers:                      # sent on every OTLP request; names are lower-cased
      Authorization: Bearer <token>
      X-Scope-OrgID: my-tenant
    tls:
      insecure: false             # http: skip cert verification; grpc: no TLS. Not for production
  prometheus:
    enabled: false                # optional /metrics bridge
    listen_address: ":9090"
targets:
  - name: my-org                  # unique per target
    base_url: https://api.github.com  # REST API root; GHES: https://<host>/api/v3
    auth:                         # exactly one of token, token_env, or app; empty or omitted uses GITHUB_TOKEN
      token_env: MY_GITHUB_TOKEN  # env var holding a PAT with repo read access
      # app:
      #   app_id: 12345
      #   installation_id: 67890
      #   private_key_path: /etc/github-activity-exporter/key.pem
      #   private_key_env: GITHUB_APP_KEY   # base64-encoded PEM, instead of the path
    orgs:                         # at least one org or repo is required
      - org: my-org
        include_repos: []
        exclude_repos: []
        include_archived: false
    repos:
      - other-owner/some-repo
    filters:
      prs:
        include_labels: []
        exclude_labels: []
        states: []                # open, closed, draft, merged
      issues:
        exclude_title_patterns: [] # regular expressions
        states: []                # open, closed

Environment variables

Env	Default	Description
`CONFIG_FILE`	`config.yaml`	Path to the config file
`GITHUB_TOKEN`		PAT for targets with an empty or omitted `auth` block
`RENOVATE_BOT_LOGIN`	`renovate[bot]`	Login of the Renovate bot that owns the Dependency Dashboard

A target's credential is resolved in this order:

The target's own auth.token, auth.token_env or auth.app. GITHUB_TOKEN is then ignored for that target.
GITHUB_TOKEN, when the target's auth block is empty or omitted. Every such target shares it. If it is unset or empty, startup fails with an error naming the target.

A partially filled auth block (for example app without app_id) is a startup error; it does not fall back to GITHUB_TOKEN.

base_url drives every GitHub call for the target: REST, GraphQL, the GitHub App token exchange and the startup credential check. GraphQL goes to https://api.github.com/graphql by default and to https://<host>/api/graphql when base_url ends in /api/v3. Targets with different base_url values can run in one deployment.

Scalar config keys can be overridden with GITHUB_ACTIVITY_EXPORTER_ env vars, upper-cased with . replaced by _ (for example GITHUB_ACTIVITY_EXPORTER_EXPORT_OTLP_ENDPOINT). Per-target settings, including auth, cannot be overridden this way.

Metrics

All metric names and attributes are defined in the OTel registry at registry/.

Metric	Instrument	Description
`github.pr.count`	UpDownCounter	PR count by repo, state, and label
`github.pr.age`	Gauge	Age in seconds of the oldest open PR per repo
`github.pr.close.duration`	Histogram	Time from open to close/merge for PRs in lookback window
`github.pr.automerged`	Counter	PRs merged with no human approval
`github.pr.review_status`	Gauge	Open PR count by review decision state
`github.issue.count`	UpDownCounter	Issue count by repo, state, and label
`github.issue.age`	Gauge	Age in seconds of the oldest open issue per repo
`renovate.dashboard.queue`	Gauge	Renovate dashboard PRs by queue state
`github_exporter.scrape.duration`	Histogram	Collection cycle duration in seconds
`github_exporter.api.errors`	Counter	GitHub API errors by target and endpoint
`github_exporter.otlp.errors`	Counter	OTLP push failures

Metric naming

The registry name is the stored name (#14). OTLP and the Prometheus bridge expose github.pr.count as github.pr.count: no _total or unit suffix (_seconds), no underscore escaping. Histograms add only the classic sample series <name>_bucket, <name>_sum and <name>_count, for example github_exporter.scrape.duration_bucket. CI checks both outputs against the registry.

Your backend must keep the names as sent (OTLP translation strategy NoTranslation):

Prometheus 3.x: UTF-8 metric names (metric_name_validation_scheme: utf8, the 3.x default). For OTLP ingestion, run with --web.enable-otlp-receiver and set otlp.translation_strategy: NoTranslation.
Mimir: -validation.name-validation-scheme=utf8, -distributor.otel-translation-strategy=NoTranslation and -distributor.otel-metric-suffixes-enabled=false (per-tenant limits name_validation_scheme, otel_translation_strategy, otel_metric_suffixes_enabled).
Grafana Cloud Metrics: the same Mimir per-tenant limits on your stack.

With any other setting the backend stores escaped or suffixed names (for example github_pr_count), which do not match the registry.

/metrics does not serve the OpenMetrics text format, because OpenMetrics requires counter names to end in _total. Scrapers that ask for OpenMetrics first, as Prometheus 3.x and Alloy do by default, get the Prometheus text format, which keeps the counter type.

Development

Prerequisites

Go 1.26+
golangci-lint
OTel Weaver (for schema validation)

Build

go build ./...

Test

go test -race ./...

Lint

golangci-lint run

Validate OTel registry

weaver registry check -r registry/

Generate code from registry

make generate

CI

Job	Trigger	Description
`lint`	every PR + push to `main`	golangci-lint
`test`	every PR + push to `main`	`go test -race`, JUnit XML upload, coverage PR comment
`build`	every PR + push to `main`	`go build ./...` for `linux/amd64`
`docker-build`	every PR + push to `main`	Multi-arch image build (`linux/amd64`, `linux/arm64`)
`check-generated`	every PR + push to `main`	Fails if `make generate` produces uncommitted changes
`registry-validate`	every PR + push to `main`	Weaver schema check + emit smoke-test (separate workflow)
`integration-test`	PRs targeting `main`	Starts exporter + mock GitHub API, runs Weaver live-check
`release`	push to `main`	semantic-release → version tag + GitHub Release
`image`	release published	Multi-arch image → GHCR (`X.Y.Z`, `X.Y`, `X`, `latest`)

Release

Releases are fully automated. Merge to main and semantic-release determines the next version from conventional commits:

Commit prefix	Version bump
`feat:`	minor
`fix:`, `perf:`	patch
`feat!:` / `BREAKING CHANGE:`	major
`chore:`, `docs:`, `test:`	no release

License

Apache 2.0

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
.github		.github
.opencode		.opencode
cmd/github-activity-exporter		cmd/github-activity-exporter
dashboards		dashboards
internal		internal
openspec		openspec
registry		registry
scripts		scripts
templates		templates
tests/integration		tests/integration
.gitignore		.gitignore
.golangci.yml		.golangci.yml
.releaserc.js		.releaserc.js
.renovaterc.json		.renovaterc.json
.weaver.toml		.weaver.toml
AGENTS.md		AGENTS.md
Dockerfile		Dockerfile
LICENSE		LICENSE
Makefile		Makefile
README.md		README.md
go.mod		go.mod
go.sum		go.sum
package.json		package.json
pnpm-lock.yaml		pnpm-lock.yaml
renovate.json		renovate.json

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Features

Quick Start

Installation

Docker

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Configuration

Config file

Environment variables

Metrics

Metric naming

Development

Prerequisites

Build

Test

Lint

Validate OTel registry

Generate code from registry

CI

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