https://octocounts.com/docs/github-sloc-counter

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129    <nav><a href="/">OctoCounts</a> / <a href="/docs/api">API docs</a> / SLOC guide</nav>
130    <main>
131      <p class="meta">Updated September 17, 2026 &middot; Maintained by <a href="https://github.com/huanglizhuo">huanglizhuo</a></p>
132      <h1>GitHub SLOC Counter Guide</h1>
133      <p class="answer">OctoCounts is a free SLOC counter for public GitHub repositories. Paste a repository URL, optionally pick a branch, tag, or commit SHA, and OctoCounts downloads the source archive, counts every file with tokei, and returns files, total lines, code lines, comments, blanks, and per-language totals. Reports are cached by commit SHA and can be exported as plain text, JSON, or a PNG card, or added to a README as a live badge.</p>
134      <p class="note">OctoCounts is a free source lines of code counter for public repositories. It works from a URL, does not clone git history, and reports files, total lines, code, comments, blanks, and language totals.</p>
135
136      <h2>What OctoCounts Is Best For</h2>
137      <ul>
138        <li>Quickly estimate the size of an unfamiliar open source repository.</li>
139        <li>Compare a dependency, fork, alternative project, branch, tag, or commit.</li>
140        <li>Add a live SLOC badge to a README.</li>
141        <li>Export language counts as text, JSON, or a social share image.</li>
142        <li>Use an API for public repository size checks in internal tools or CI dashboards.</li>
143      </ul>
144
145      <h2>Supported Repository Hosts</h2>
146      <table>
147        <thead>
148          <tr><th>Host</th><th>Support</th><th>Entry point</th></tr>
149        </thead>
150        <tbody>
151          <tr><td>GitHub public repositories</td><td>Web app, API, report pages, badges, Chrome extension, Edge extension, Firefox extension</td><td><code>https://github.com/owner/repo</code></td></tr>
152          <tr><td>Private repositories</td><td>Not supported</td><td>Run <code>tokei</code> locally instead</td></tr>
153        </tbody>
154      </table>
155
156      <h2>How the Count Works</h2>
157      <ol>
158        <li>OctoCounts validates the public repository URL and resolves the requested branch, tag, or commit SHA.</li>
159        <li>The backend downloads a source archive for that exact ref instead of cloning full git history.</li>
160        <li>The extracted source tree is counted with <a href="https://github.com/XAMPPRocky/tokei">tokei</a>.</li>
161        <li>Generated and heavy dependency folders such as <code>.git</code>, <code>node_modules</code>, <code>target</code>, <code>dist</code>, and <code>vendor</code> are ignored by default.</li>
162        <li>The report is cached by repository, commit SHA, tokei version, and analysis options.</li>
163      </ol>
164      <p>For the full counting policy, cache key, exclusions, limitations, and citation format, see the <a href="/docs/methodology">OctoCounts methodology</a>. Agent-readable context is also available in <a href="/llms.txt">/llms.txt</a> and <a href="/llms-full.txt">/llms-full.txt</a>. For measured examples of how the exclusion options change the reported numbers, see the <a href="/research">pilot study on SLOC filtering effects</a>.</p>
165
166      <h2>Metrics Explained</h2>
167      <table>
168        <thead>
169          <tr><th>Metric</th><th>Meaning</th></tr>
170        </thead>
171        <tbody>
172          <tr><td>Files</td><td>Source files detected by language rules.</td></tr>
173          <tr><td>Total lines</td><td>Code lines + comment lines + blank lines.</td></tr>
174          <tr><td>Code lines</td><td>Executable or meaningful source lines after language parsing.</td></tr>
175          <tr><td>Comments</td><td>Line and block comments recognized by the language parser.</td></tr>
176          <tr><td>Blanks</td><td>Whitespace-only lines.</td></tr>
177          <tr><td>Languages</td><td>Detected programming languages and file types, sorted by code lines.</td></tr>
178        </tbody>
179      </table>
180
181      <h2>Examples</h2>
182      <pre><code>https://octocounts.com/?q=https://github.com/huanglizhuo/OctoCounts
183https://octocounts.com/github/huanglizhuo/OctoCounts
184https://octocounts.com/github/huanglizhuo/OctoCounts/tree/main

185https://octocounts.com/compare?left=https://github.com/huanglizhuo/OctoCounts&right=https://github.com/tokio-rs/axum
186https://octocounts.com/diff?repo=https://github.com/huanglizhuo/OctoCounts&amp;base=main&amp;head=22c3647</code></pre>
187
188      <h2>Badges</h2>
189      <p>Use live badges to show repository size in a README:</p>
190      <pre><code>[![OctoCounts](https://api.octocounts.com/badge/huanglizhuo/OctoCounts)](https://octocounts.com/github/huanglizhuo/OctoCounts)
191[![Code lines](https://api.octocounts.com/badge/huanglizhuo/OctoCounts?type=code)](https://octocounts.com/github/huanglizhuo/OctoCounts)
192[![Rust lines](https://api.octocounts.com/badge/huanglizhuo/OctoCounts?lang=Rust)](https://octocounts.com/github/huanglizhuo/OctoCounts)</code></pre>
193
194      <h2>API</h2>
195      <p>Programmatic users can start an analysis with <code>POST /api/analyze</code>, poll <code>GET /api/jobs/:jobId</code>, and fetch the result with <code>GET /api/reports/:reportId</code>. See the <a href="/docs/api">OctoCounts API docs</a> for request bodies, report fields, and badge routes.</p>
196
197      <h2>Privacy and Scope</h2>
198      <p>OctoCounts analyzes public repositories only. It does not request GitHub account access, does not support private repositories, and does not accept source-code uploads. Cached reports contain public repository statistics only.</p>
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