MediumWeb5 min read

GitHub URL Regex

Matches a GitHub repository URL and captures the owner and repository name, optionally allowing a deeper path like a file or branch.

#url#github#web#validation#developer-tools

Regex Pattern

^https?:\/\/(?:www\.)?github\.com\/([\w.-]+)\/([\w.-]+)(?:\/.*)?$

Pattern Breakdown

Hover over a token to see what it does.

^https?:\/\/(?:www\.)?github\.com\/([\w.-]+)\/([\w.-]+)(?:\/.*)?$

Token	Meaning
^	Anchors the match to the start of the string
https?	Matches http or https
:\/\/	Literal :// scheme separator
(?:www\.)?	Optional www. subdomain prefix
github\.com\/	Literal github.com host followed by a slash
([\w.-]+)	Capture group 1: the repository owner (user or organization) name
([\w.-]+)	Capture group 2: the repository name
(?:\/.*)?$	Optional trailing path such as /blob/main/file.js, then end of string

Detailed Explanation

What it does

This pattern validates that a string is a GitHub repository URL of the form https://github.com/owner/repo, capturing the owner and repository name, and optionally allows any additional path such as a branch, file, or issue reference.

Why it works

The owner and repository segments are matched with [\w.-]+, which covers the characters GitHub permits in usernames, organization names, and repo names (letters, digits, underscores, dots, and hyphens). Requiring exactly two slash-separated segments after the host, followed by an optional trailing (?:\/.*)?, distinguishes a real owner/repo URL from a bare user profile URL (only one segment) while still accepting deep links into a repo's file tree or history.

Common use cases

Validating a 'repository URL' field in a project submission or portfolio form
Extracting the owner and repo name from a pasted GitHub link to call the GitHub API
Filtering a list of URLs to find only those that reference a specific repository
Normalizing GitHub links before storing them, stripping deep paths down to the repo root

Edge cases

Deep links like https://github.com/facebook/react/blob/main/README.md are matched, with the extra path captured by the trailing optional group
URLs with only an owner and no repository, like https://github.com/torvalds, are rejected because a second path segment is required
The bare host with no path, https://github.com/, is rejected since neither capture group has any characters to match
www.github.com is accepted alongside the bare github.com host
GitHub Enterprise or self-hosted GitHub instances on other domains are not matched since the host is hardcoded to github.com

Limitations

Does not verify that the referenced repository actually exists or is publicly accessible
Does not distinguish between organization and personal accounts, since GitHub uses the same URL shape for both
Repository names containing characters GitHub itself would reject are not filtered out, since the pattern is permissive about valid-looking characters

Interactive Tester

Edit the pattern or text below — matching runs live in your browser.

Open in Playground →

https://github.com/facebook/react https://github.com/torvalds/linux http://github.com/user/repo/blob/main/file.js

3 matches· capture groups: 2

Test Cases

Editable — add your own inputs to see if they pass.

Input	Expected	Result
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Language Variants

Production-ready examples in 12 languages.

const githubUrlRegex = /^https?:\/\/(?:www\.)?github\.com\/([\w.-]+)\/([\w.-]+)(?:\/.*)?$/;
const m = 'https://github.com/facebook/react'.match(githubUrlRegex);
console.log(m[1], m[2]); // 'facebook' 'react'

Common Mistakes

Matching only github.com/owner and treating it as a valid repository URL

Fix: Require two path segments so profile URLs (owner only) are distinguished from repo URLs (owner/repo)

Hardcoding the trailing path to a specific format like /blob/branch/path, breaking on issue or pull-request URLs

Fix: Use a generic (?:\/.*)? to accept any trailing path rather than a specific sub-pattern

Forgetting gist.github.com and raw.githubusercontent.com are different hosts that this pattern won't match

Fix: Write separate patterns for GitHub's other subdomains if those URL types need to be recognized

Performance Notes

The two [\w.-]+ capture groups are bounded by the surrounding slashes, so backtracking is minimal even for long owner or repo names
The optional trailing (?:\/.*)? uses . which can be slow on very long paths with many slashes, but is safe since it's the last thing checked before $
Anchoring with ^ and $ avoids scanning arbitrary substrings for a match when validating a full URL string

Browser Compatibility

Engine	Supported	Notes
Chrome	Yes	—
Firefox	Yes	—
Safari	Yes	—
Edge	Yes	—
Node.js	Yes	—

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