I’m trying to figure out the best ways to grab just one file from a GitHub repository without downloading the whole thing. The raw file URLs don’t work for binary files since they just show nothing useful. I’m wondering if GitHub can actually work as a proper download server for individual files. Also thinking about whether Google Code has better options for this kind of thing, or if there are other free hosting services with version control that handle single file downloads better for open source projects. What’s the most reliable method to download specific files from GitHub repos?
GitHub API is your best bet. Use the Contents API endpoint - it grabs individual files and handles both text and binary properly by encoding binary stuff in base64. For binary files, hit https://api.github.com/repos/owner/repo/contents/path/to/file and decode the base64 response. I’ve used this for automated deployments when I only needed specific config files. You also get metadata like file size and SHA hash, which is handy for caching. Rate limits won’t bite you for occasional downloads, but authenticate if you’re hitting it frequently for higher limits.
Just use raw.githubusercontent.com for individual files. Go to any file on GitHub, hit the Raw button, and you’ll get a direct download URL like https://raw.githubusercontent.com/owner/repo/branch/path/to/file. Works great for binary files too, unlike GitHub’s regular interface. I’ve done this for years to grab specific scripts and assets without cloning whole repos. The URLs don’t change and you can bookmark them. You can even build these URLs programmatically without visiting GitHub first. Way faster than messing with API responses when you just want to download a file.