Self-updating profile README — no third-party services, GraphQL only

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How do you build a self-updating GitHub profile README that automatically reflects your latest activity (pinned repos, recent commits, blog posts) without using third-party services — using only GitHub Actions and the GitHub GraphQL API?

[Sagargupta16]

I do exactly this on my profile. Here's the approach:

1. GitHub Action (scheduled + manual trigger)

name: Update README
on:
  schedule:
    - cron: "0 */6 * * *"  # every 6 hours
  workflow_dispatch:

jobs:
  update:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - name: Fetch and update
        env:
          GH_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
        run: python update_readme.py
      - name: Commit changes
        run: |
          git config user.name "github-actions[bot]"
          git config user.email "github-actions[bot]@users.noreply.github.com"
          git diff --quiet || (git add README.md && git commit -m "chore: update README" && git push)

2. Python script using GraphQL

import os, json, urllib.request

TOKEN = os.environ["GH_TOKEN"]
USERNAME = "your-username"

def graphql(query):
    req = urllib.request.Request(
        "https://api.github.com/graphql",
        data=json.dumps({"query": query}).encode(),
        headers={"Authorization": f"bearer {TOKEN}", "Content-Type": "application/json"}
    )
    return json.loads(urllib.request.urlopen(req).read())

# Fetch pinned repos
result = graphql(f"""
{{
  user(login: "{USERNAME}") {{
    pinnedItems(first: 6, types: REPOSITORY) {{
      nodes {{ ... on Repository {{ name description url stargazerCount }} }}
    }}
    contributionsCollection {{
      totalCommitContributions
      totalPullRequestContributions
    }}
  }}
}}
""")

user = result["data"]["user"]
pinned = user["pinnedItems"]["nodes"]
contribs = user["contributionsCollection"]

3. Template your README

Use markers in your README.md like <!-- PINNED_START --> and <!-- PINNED_END -->, then replace the content between them with the GraphQL data.

No third-party actions needed - just actions/checkout and a script. The GITHUB_TOKEN provided by Actions has enough scope for the GraphQL API to read your own public data.

For blog posts, you can fetch your RSS feed with urllib and parse it with xml.etree.ElementTree - also pure Python, no dependencies.