🚀 GitHub Username Auto-Updater

A powerful, CLI tool that automatically finds and replaces your old GitHub username with a new one across all your repositories and files using the GitHub REST API.

✨ Features

• 🔐 Secure Authentication - Uses GitHub Personal Access Tokens
• 🔄 Automated Updates - Updates all occurrences across all repositories
• 📝 Smart File Detection - Targets .md, .json, .js, .ts, .yml, .html, .css, and more
• 🎨 Beautiful CLI - Colorful output with progress spinners
• 🛡️ Safe & Dry-run Mode - Preview changes before applying
• ⏱️ Rate Limit Handling - Intelligent delays to avoid API limits
• 📊 Detailed Statistics - See exactly what changed
• 🎯 Selective Processing - Skips binary files and archived repos
• 💾 Auto Commits - Creates meaningful commit messages

📋 Prerequisites

• Node.js v18.0.0 or higher
• GitHub Personal Access Token with repo and read:user scopes

🔧 Installation

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/SafwanGanz/GitRebrand.git
   cd GitRebrand

2. Install dependencies:

   npm install

3. Create a GitHub Personal Access Token:

   • Go to GitHub Settings → Developer settings → Personal access tokens
   • Click "Generate new token (classic)"
   • Select scopes: repo (Full control of private repositories) and read:user
   • Copy the generated token

4. Configure environment variables:

   # Copy the example .env file
   cp .env .env.local

   Edit .env and add your token:

   GITHUB_TOKEN=ghp_your_token_here
   OLD_USERNAME=your-old-username
   NEW_USERNAME=your-new-username

🚀 Usage

Basic Usage

node index.js --old oldUsername --new newUsername --token ghp_xxxxx

Dry Run (Recommended First!)

Preview what would change without making any commits:

node index.js --old oldUsername --new newUsername --token ghp_xxxxx --dry-run

Using Environment Variables

If you've set values in .env, you can simply run:

node index.js

CLI Options

Option	Alias	Description	Required
--old	-o	Old GitHub username	Yes
--new	-n	New GitHub username	Yes
--token	-t	GitHub personal access token	Yes
--dry-run	-d	Preview changes without committing	No
--help	-h	Show help message	No

📁 Project Structure

github-username-updater/
├── index.js              # Main CLI application
├── utils/
│   ├── api.js           # GitHub API wrapper with rate limiting
│   ├── replacer.js      # Text replacement logic
│   ├── logger.js        # Colorful console logger
├── .env                 # Environment variables (create this)
├── .gitignore          # Git ignore file
├── package.json        # Project dependencies
└── README.md           # Documentation

🎯 How It Works

1. Authentication - Verifies your GitHub token
2. Fetch Repositories - Gets all your repositories
3. Scan Files - For each repo, scans all files recursively
4. Filter Files - Processes only text-based files (.md, .json, .js, etc.)
5. Replace Text - Finds and replaces old username with new username
6. Commit Changes - Creates commits with message: chore: updated username from oldUsername to newUsername
7. Rate Limiting - Waits 1.5 seconds between repos to respect GitHub API limits

📊 Example Output

🚀 GitHub Username Auto-Updater

⚠ Running in DRY-RUN mode - no changes will be committed

✓ Authenticated as yourname
ℹ Replacing: olduser → newuser

✓ Found 25 repositories

────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
[1/25] safwanganz/GitRebrand
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  ➜ README.md (3 replacements)
  ➜ package.json (2 replacements)
  ○ index.js (no changes)
ℹ Would commit 2 file(s) (dry-run)

────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
📊 Summary:
  Total repositories: 25
  ✓ Updated: 18
  ⚠ Skipped: 5
  ✗ Failed: 2
  📝 Total files changed: 47
  🔄 Total replacements: 156
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

🛡️ Safety Features

• ✅ Dry-run mode - Test before applying changes
• ✅ Skips binary files - Only processes text files
• ✅ Skips archived repos - Won't modify archived repositories
• ✅ Rate limit protection - Automatic retry with exponential backoff
• ✅ Case-sensitive matching - Prevents false positives
• ✅ Username validation - Checks GitHub username format

🧪 Testing Safely

⚠️ IMPORTANT: Always test with dry-run first!

1. First, run in dry-run mode:

   node index.js --old testuser --new newuser --token ghp_xxx --dry-run

2. Review the output carefully - Check which files would be changed

3. Test on a single repository first:

   • Create a test repository
   • Run the tool on just that repo (you could modify the code temporarily)

4. When confident, run without dry-run:

   node index.js --old testuser --new newuser --token ghp_xxx

5. Verify changes on GitHub - Check a few repositories manually

🔍 Supported File Types

• Markdown: .md
• JavaScript/TypeScript: .js, .ts, .jsx, .tsx
• JSON: .json
• YAML: .yml, .yaml
• HTML/CSS: .html, .css
• Configuration: .env, .gitignore, .npmrc
• Shell scripts: .sh
• Text files: .txt
• Files without extension: README, LICENSE, CHANGELOG

⚙️ Configuration

Rate Limiting

Default delay between repository updates: 1.5 seconds

To modify, edit utils/api.js:

this.rateLimitDelay = 1500; // milliseconds

File Types

To add more file types, edit utils/replacer.js:

const targetExtensions = [
  '.md', '.json', '.js', '.ts',
  '.your-new-extension'  // Add here
];

🐛 Troubleshooting

"Authentication failed"

• Verify your token is correct
• Ensure token has repo and read:user scopes

"Rate limit exceeded"

• The tool will automatically wait and retry
• Consider increasing rateLimitDelay in utils/api.js

"Invalid username format"

• GitHub usernames: alphanumeric + hyphens, max 39 characters
• Cannot start/end with hyphen

No files being updated

• Check if your username actually appears in the files
• Verify file types are supported
• Run with --dry-run to see what would be processed

📝 License

MIT License - feel free to use this in your own projects!

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request to SafwanGanz/GitRebrand.

⚠️ Disclaimer

This tool makes automated changes to your repositories. Always:

• ✅ Use --dry-run first
• ✅ Have backups of important repositories
• ✅ Review changes before running
• ✅ Test on non-critical repos first

📚 Resources

• GitHub REST API Documentation
• Octokit.js
• Creating Personal Access Tokens

💡 Tips

1. Backup Important Repos - Clone locally before running
2. Start Small - Test on a few repos first
3. Check Commit History - Verify commits look correct
4. Update Local Clones - Pull changes after running the tool

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Made with ❤️ by developers, for developers

If you find this tool helpful, please give it a ⭐️!