GitHub Store

🗺️ Project Overview

GitHub Store is a cross-platform app store for GitHub releases, designed to simplify discovering and installing open-source software. It automatically detects installable binaries (APK, EXE, DMG, AppImage, DEB, RPM), provides one-click installation, tracks updates, and presents repository information in a clean, app-store style interface.

Built with Kotlin Multiplatform and Compose Multiplatform for Android and Desktop platforms.

📔 Wiki & Resources

Check out GitHub Store Wiki for FAQ and useful information

Privacy Policy: openhub-store.github.io/privacy-policy

---

📋 Legal Notice

GitHub Store is an independent, open-source project not affiliated with GitHub, Inc.
The name describes the app's functionality (discovering GitHub releases) and does not imply trademark ownership.
GitHub® is a registered trademark of GitHub, Inc.

---

🔃 Download

Important

macOS Users: You may see a warning that Apple cannot verify GitHub Store. This happens because the app is distributed outside the App Store and is not notarized yet. Allow it via System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open Anyway.

---

🏆 Featured In

HowToMen: Top 20 Best Android Apps 2026 | Top 12 App Stores that are Better than Google Play Store
HelloGitHub: Featured Project

---

🚀 Features

• Smart discovery

  • Home sections for “Trending”, “Recently Updated”, and “New” projects with time‑based filters.
  • Only repos with valid installable assets are shown.
  • Platform‑aware topic scoring so Android/desktop users see relevant apps first.

• Latest‑release installs

  • Fetches /releases/latest for each repo.
  • Shows only assets from the latest release.
  • Single “Install latest” action, plus an expandable list of all installers for that release.

• Rich details screen

  • App name, version, “Install latest” button.
  • Stars, forks, open issues.
  • Rendered README content (“About this app”).
  • Latest release notes (body) with markdown formatting.
  • List of installers with platform labels and file sizes.

• Cross‑platform UX

  • Android: opens APK downloads with the package installer, tracks installations in a local database, and shows them in a dedicated Apps screen with update indicators.
  • Desktop (Windows/macOS/Linux): downloads installers to the user’s Downloads folder and opens them with the default handler; no hidden temp locations.

• Appearance & theming

• Material 3 design with Material 3 Expressive components on all platforms.

• Material You dynamic color support on Android where available.

• Optional AMOLED black mode for dark theme on OLED devices.

• Safety & inspection (Android)

• Optional GitHub sign‑in via OAuth device flow for higher rate limits with minimal scopes.

• “Open in AppManager” action to inspect an APK’s permissions and trackers before installing.

---

🔍 How does my app appear in GitHub Store?

GitHub Store does not use any private indexing or manual curation rules.
Your project can appear automatically if it follows these conditions:

1. Public repository on GitHub

   • Visibility must be public.

2. At least one published release

   • Created via GitHub Releases (not only tags).
   • The latest release must not be a draft or prerelease.

3. Installable assets in the latest release

   • The latest release must contain at least one asset file with a supported extension:
     • Android: .apk
     • Windows: .exe, .msi
     • macOS: .dmg, .pkg
     • Linux: .deb, .rpm, .AppImage
   • GitHub Store ignores GitHub’s auto‑generated source artifacts (Source code (zip) / Source code (tar.gz)).

4. Discoverable by search / topics

   • Repositories are fetched via the public GitHub Search API.
   • Topic, language, and description help the ranking:
     • Android apps: topics like android, mobile, apk.
     • Desktop apps: topics like desktop, windows, linux, macos, compose-desktop, electron.
   • Having at least a few stars makes it more likely to appear under Popular/Updated/New sections.

If your repo meets these conditions, GitHub Store can find it through search and show it automatically—no manual submission required.

---

🧭 How GitHub Store works (high‑level)

1. Search

   • Uses GitHub’s /search/repositories endpoint with platform‑aware queries.
   • Applies simple scoring based on topics, language, and description.
   • Filters out archived repos and those with too few signals.

2. Release + asset check

   • For candidate repos, calls /repos/{owner}/{repo}/releases/latest.
   • Checks the assets array for platform‑specific file extensions.
   • If no suitable asset is found, the repo is excluded from results.

3. Details screen

   • Repository info: name, owner, description, stars, forks, issues.
   • Latest release: tag, published date, body (changelog), assets.
   • README: loaded from the default branch and rendered as “About this app”.

4. Install flow

   • When the user taps “Install latest”:
     • Picks the best matching asset for the current platform.
     • Streams the download.
     • Delegates to the OS installer (APK installer on Android, default handler on desktop).
     • On Android, records the installation in a local database and uses package monitoring to keep the installed list in sync.

---

⚙️ Tech stack

• Minimum Android SDK: 24

• Language & Platform

  • Kotlin Multiplatform (Android + JVM Desktop)
  • Compose Multiplatform UI (Material 3, icons, resources)

• Async & state

  • Kotlin Coroutines + Flow
  • AndroidX Lifecycle (ViewModel + Runtime Compose)

• Networking & Data

  • Ktor 3 (HttpClient with OkHttp on Android, Java on Desktop)
  • Kotlinx Serialization JSON.
  • Kotlinx Datetime for time handling
  • Room + KSP for the installed apps database on Android.

• Dependency injection

  • Koin 4

• Navigation

  • JetBrains Navigation Compose for shared navigation graph

• Auth & Security

  • GitHub OAuth (Device Code flow)
  • Androidx DataStore for token storage

• Media & markdown

  • Coil 3 (Ktor3 image loader)
  • multiplatform-markdown-renderer-m3 (+ Coil3 integration) for README/release notes

• Logging & tooling

  • Kermit logging
  • Compose Hot Reload ( desktop)
  • ProGuard/R8 + resource shrinking for release builds

---

✅ Pros / Why use GitHub Store?

• No more hunting through GitHub releases See only repos that actually ship binaries for your platform.

• Knows what you installed Tracks apps installed via GitHub Store (Android) and highlights when new releases are available, so you can update them without hunting through GitHub again.

• Always the latest release
  Installs are guaranteed to come from the latest published release; the changelog you see is exactly what you’re installing.

• Uniform experience across platforms
  Same UI and logic for Android and desktop, with platform‑native install behavior.

• Open source & extensible
  Written in KMP with a clear separation between networking, domain logic, and UI—easy to fork, extend, or adapt.

---

☕ Support the project

GitHub Store has reached 48,000+ active users and 5,500+ GitHub stars — and it's 100% free with no ads, no tracking, and no premium features.

I built and maintain this entirely on my own while finishing high school. Your support (even $3) helps me:

✅ Keep the app bug-free — respond to issues and ship fixes quickly
✅ Add community-requested features — implement what users actually need
✅ Maintain infrastructure — servers, APIs, and deployment costs

💖 Ways to Support

Can't sponsor right now? That's okay! You can still help by:

• ⭐ Starring this repo — helps others discover GitHub Store
• 🐛 Reporting bugs — makes the app better for everyone
• 📢 Sharing with friends — spread the word to other developers
• 💬 Joining discussions — your feedback shapes the roadmap

Every bit of support—financial or not—means the world and keeps this project alive. Thank you! 🙏

---

Star History

🔑 Configuration

GitHub Store uses a GitHub OAuth app for authentication and API rate‑limit isolation.

1. Create a GitHub OAuth app at GitHub → Settings → Developer settings → OAuth Apps.
2. Set the callback URL to githubstore://callback (Not quite important).
3. Copy the Client ID from the OAuth app.
4. In your project’s local.properties, add:

---

⚠️ Disclaimer

GitHub Store only helps you discover and download release assets that are already published on GitHub by third‑party developers.
The contents, safety, and behavior of those downloads are entirely the responsibility of their respective authors and distributors, not this project.

By using GithubStore, you understand and agree that you install and run any downloaded software at your own risk.
This project does not review, validate, or guarantee that any installer is safe, free of malware, or fit for any particular purpose.

Stats

📄 License

GitHub Store will be released under the Apache License, Version 2.0.

Copyright 2025 rainxchzed

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
you may not use this project except in compliance with the License.
You may obtain a copy of the License at

  http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
limitations under the License.