🚀 The Quickest Way to Authenticate GitHub API (Without a Backend) 🔑

🔓 Use a GitHub Personal Access Token (PAT) to increase rate limits and make authenticated API requests.

Cat doing a secure login — made by Dalle for this article

I had been wrestling with my GitHub Insights Dashboard for hours — fixing bugs 🐛, tweaking API calls 🔄, and convincing myself that the UI was “good enough for now.”

Feeling somewhat accomplished, I sent it to a friend to check out. A few minutes later, they messaged me:

“Uh… this just shows your stats. Where’s mine?”

That’s when it hit me — I had built the entire dashboard without authentication. It only fetched my data because I never implemented a way for users to log in.

I needed a way for any user to log in and see their own GitHub stats.

I tried searching for a solution. “Use OAuth.” 😩 Nope. “Set up a backend.” 🙅 Not happening. Then, buried deep in a forum thread, someone casually mentioned GitHub Personal Access Tokens (PATs).

That was it. ✅

👉 Personal Access Tokens (PATs) to the rescue.
With a newly generated PAT, I could:
✅ Authenticate API requests without needing a backend
✅ Make up to 5,000 requests per hour instead of being stuck with 60 (See GitHub’s Rate Limit Documentation)
✅ Set it up in less than an hour ⏳