🕵️ Investigation: Use a GitHub API that doesn't error with 404 when not found

[JoshuaKGoldberg]

Overview

Right now, if the extension is used on a GitHub issue page for a repository that doesn't have a .github/replies.yml, the API call to https://api.github.com/repos/${userOrOrganization}/${repository} fails with a 404. That failure shows up in the dev tools console. Annoying.

It'd be nice to find a GitHub API that doesn't cause these 404s when the file isn't found. Maybe a GraphQL one has such a feature?

[estevezluis]

I see that this issue isn't accepting prs however, in attempt to solve issue #43 (didn't understand the out of scope part), I found an API that lets you search through the git tree.

Take a look at my commit

There's two way to use this API.

1. Without recursive parameter. This would require a second API call after finding '.github' tree/dir
2. With recursive parameter. If git repo contains a large amount of files this will be slow.

[JoshuaKGoldberg]

Aha that's a nice investigation! Thank you for putting this together! 🙏

• Upside: I like very much that it shouldn't give a 404 when the file doesn't exist.
• Downside: that extra API call, as you mentioned. It means the extension will run slower and less reliably.

Let's investigate alternate ways to get this working that take up just one network request still. (aside: I just filed #149 to tackle after this issue)

A couple of options that popped up while searching for alternatives:

• Get repository content REST API
• GitHub's GraphQL API
  • Note: if this needs auth data, since we're running in a GitHub page, we might be able to grab it from the existing DOM and/or JS globals?