Find out why the star history chart in your README stopped moving, and replace it with one that updates. It takes about ten minutes. You need write access to the README and, for the optional checks, curl and the GitHub CLI (gh).
1. Confirm that the chart is stale
Open README.md and copy the URL of the chart image. Open that URL directly in a browser and read the last date on the x axis. If the last date is weeks old while the repository still gets stars, the chart is stale.
On the GitHub page itself, the image comes from GitHub’s proxy at camo.githubusercontent.com. The proxy keeps a copy, so also open the source URL from the file.
2. Find out why it stopped
On 30 June 2026 GitHub announced that the list stargazers endpoint, /repos/{owner}/{repo}/stargazers, and the /stargazers page would be limited to a repository’s admins and collaborators. The restriction is in force now. A chart that pages through that list gets an error or an empty list, so its curve ends on the last day it could read.
You can see the restriction yourself. These are the answers on 30 October 2026:
| Request | Answer |
|---|---|
GET /repos/OWNER/REPO/stargazers with no token |
401 |
| The same request with a token of an account that is not a collaborator | 404 |
GET /repos/OWNER/REPO/stargazers/history with no token |
200 |
curl -s -o /dev/null -w '%{http_code}\n' https://api.github.com/repos/OWNER/REPO/stargazers
curl -s -o /dev/null -w '%{http_code}\n' https://api.github.com/repos/OWNER/REPO/stargazers/history
On 4 September 2026 GitHub added the star history endpoint, GET /repos/{owner}/{repo}/stargazers/history. It returns star counts over time and no stargazer names. A chart that reads it keeps working.
3. Check your own workflows
Some repositories draw the chart in a GitHub Actions workflow and commit the image. Search the workflows for the old endpoint:
grep -rn "stargazers" .github/workflows
A match on /stargazers without /history is the cause. If the workflow does nothing else, you can delete it after step 4. If you want to keep your own script, GitHub star history API: what changed and how to use it shows how to move it to the history endpoint.
4. Replace the image in place
Swap only the image and the link around it. Keep your heading and the text near it. Replace OWNER/REPO with your lowercase slug:
<a href="https://gitdebt.com/OWNER/REPO?ref=readme">
<picture>
<source media="(prefers-color-scheme: dark)" srcset="https://api.gitdebt.com/api/repos/OWNER/REPO/chart.svg?theme=dark" />
<img alt="OWNER/REPO star history" src="https://api.gitdebt.com/api/repos/OWNER/REPO/chart.svg?theme=light" />
</picture>
</a>
gitdebt reads GitHub’s star history endpoint, so it needs no token from you and no access to your repository. Do not add a second chart under the old one. Two charts that disagree confuse readers.
If the old chart was a file in the repository, delete the file and the workflow that wrote it in the same commit.
5. Commit and check the result
Commit and push, then reload the README on GitHub. The first request for a repository that gitdebt has not read yet returns a placeholder and queues the work. The chart fills in at the same URL, usually within a few minutes.
To check from a terminal:
curl -s https://api.gitdebt.com/api/repos/OWNER/REPO/progress.json
curl -s "https://api.gitdebt.com/api/repos/OWNER/REPO/stars.csv?from=2026-10-01" | tail -3
The first command shows "complete":true under stars when the series is ready. The second prints the last days with new stars.
6. Clear GitHub’s cached copy if the URL did not change
GitHub builds the proxy URL from the source URL. When you replace the image with a new URL, the page gets a new proxy URL and shows the new chart at once.
If you kept the same image URL and only the server behind it changed, GitHub can show its old copy for a while. GitHub’s Camo troubleshooting page gives the fix:
- On the README page, right-click the chart and copy the image address. It starts with
https://camo.githubusercontent.com/. - Send a purge request for that address:
curl -X PURGE "https://camo.githubusercontent.com/PASTE-THE-REST-HERE"
Common problems
| What you see | Cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| The new chart is a placeholder after an hour | The slug is wrong, or the repository is private | Check the slug on github.com. gitdebt reads public repositories only |
| A broken image icon | A query parameter is wrong and the server returned 400 | Run curl -i on the image URL and read the error field |
gitdebt cannot draw a private repository. GitHub’s changelog keeps the stargazer list open to a repository’s admins and collaborators, so for a private repository a script that runs with your own token is the way to chart it.
Look up your repository on gitdebt to see the replacement chart before you commit it.