For your next project on GitHub, take advantage of the service's powerful API to meet your unique development requirements. This practical guide shows you how to build your own software tools for customizing the GitHub workflow. Each hands-on chapter is a compelling story that walks you through the tradeoffs and considerations for building applications on top of various GitHub technologies.If you're an experienced programmer familiar with GitHub, you'll learn how to build tools with the GitHub API and related open source technologies such as Jekyll (site builder), Hubot (NodeJS chat robot), and Gollum (wiki).Build a simple Ruby server with Gist API command-line tools and Ruby's "Octokit" API clientUse the Gollum command-line tool to build an image management applicationBuild a GUI tool to search GitHub with PythonDocument interactions between third-party tools and your codeUse Jekyll to create a fully-featured blog from material in your GitHub repositoryCreate an Android mobile application that reads and writes information into a Jekyll repositoryHost an entire single-page JavaScript application on GitHubUse Hubot to automate pull request reviews


Chris Dawson comes from a family of public school teachers. From an early age, computers provided an always fascinating and often frustrating complement to learning and teaching for Chris. Notably inconspicuous at several notable startups and technology companies like Apple, Virage and RealNetworks, Chris gratefully had the opportunity to live on three continents and experience the power and dynamism of diverse communities. As such, it is with great relish that Chris has been participating in and documenting one of the most exciting learning communities of the 21st century: GitHub.Ben Straub is a lifelong developer, and enthusiast of the craft of making great software. He’s written software for over 15 years, has authored several books, and has recorded educational software training videos. He enjoys reading, taking his kids on bike rides, chocolate, dogs, those little notebooks you carry around with you, photography, a good weekend hack, traveling, writing, food, craftsmanship, a great pen, Markdown, music, movies, and talking to amazing people.