I'm following a backend development learning path and already know C#. One of the suggested beginner projects is to build something that displays GitHub user activity, so I'm trying to fetch data from GitHub's API.
I understand that C# applications commonly use HttpClient, a base address, and possibly authentication. I also know the general idea of calling GetAsync and deserializing the JSON response, but the GitHub documentation feels overwhelming and I'm not sure which endpoint, headers, or authentication method I should use first.
The project instructions only say to use the GitHub API without specifying an endpoint. Should I continue with this project now, or am I getting ahead of myself before learning more about APIs?
2 Answers
The GitHub documentation is not especially beginner-oriented, and the project description sounds too vague if it only says to use the API. Start with one concrete goal, such as retrieving a user’s public events. Find the endpoint for that task, read its required parameters and response example, then make a simple GET request from C#. You can begin with public data and add authentication later if the API requires it or you run into rate limits.
It would probably help to pause and work through a beginner-friendly C# REST API tutorial first. Knowing that HttpClient and GetAsync exist is a good start, but you also need to understand request URLs, query parameters, headers, response status codes, JSON models, async/await, and how authentication works. Once those pieces are familiar, GitHub’s documentation will be much easier to navigate.
I understand the basic GetAsync and JSON deserialization idea, but I’m probably missing the bigger picture around requests and authentication. I’ll review those concepts before tackling GitHub specifically.
That makes sense. Instead of trying to understand the entire API, I should choose one endpoint and learn only what is needed to call it and interpret its response.