musq / github-available-usernames

Find out available usernames on GitHub

Github available usernames

Find out available usernames in Github.

It works by iterating over a list of words which fit the specified parameters and pinging Github to check if the profile page of these words (usernames) exist. If it does not exist, this word is stored as an available username.

Requirements

• python 3.6+
• pipenv

Installation

1. Clone this repository and cd into it
2. Create a virtualenv using python3 -m venv vendor
3. Activate the virtualenv using source vendor/bin/activate
4. Run pipenv install to install dependencies
5. Run python main.py to begin extraction

Issues

If you face issues with nltk, please get a shell of your virtualenv's python by typing python and then follow these ---

import nltk
nltk.download('words')
nltk.download('cumdict')

You'll need to do this only once.

Configuration

There are two modes to choose candidates for potential usernames. Check the main() function in main.py.

1. Dictionary (default) --- Use words from a dictionary
2. Pronounceable --- Use random pronounceable words with a threshold on syllables. Use following parameters:
   • USERNAME_MAX_SYLLABLE_COUNT - Maximum syllables count
   • MAX_DESIRED_RESULTS - Number of usernames to scout

Other generic parameters ---

• USERNAME_MAX_LENGTH - Length of desired username
• SLEEP_INTERVAL - Break after each Github ping. (Keep this greater than 200ms to avoid being blacklisted by Github)
• GITHUB_AVAILABLE_USERNAMES_FILE - File name to store the available usernames
• GITHUB_REQUESTS_FILE - File name to store all tried words

Optimizations

• Check if the current word has already been pinged. If yes, do not ping it again.