give-thanks

A CLI for thanking open source maintainers — star repos and post gratitude in GitHub Discussions.

Small and mid-size OSS maintainers rarely hear how their work is being used. Stars are anonymous. Issues are complaints. give-thanks closes that feedback loop with a single command.

Install

npm install -g give-thanks

Or use without installing:

npx give-thanks chalk

Usage

Thank a package

# By package name (resolves via npm/PyPI registries)
give-thanks chalk

# With context about how you use it
give-thanks chalk --used-for "colorful CLI output in our dev tools"

# By GitHub repo directly
give-thanks sindresorhus/chalk

# With a custom message
give-thanks chalk --message "This library saved us weeks of work. Thank you!"

Scan your project

# Scan current directory for dependencies
give-thanks --scan

# Scan a specific project
give-thanks --scan ./my-project

This reads package.json and requirements.txt/pyproject.toml, filters out packages you've already thanked, and presents an interactive checklist.

View your history

give-thanks --history

What it does

1. Stars the repo (always)
2. Posts a thank-you message in GitHub Discussions (preferred) or falls back to an issue
3. Tracks your history locally at ~/.give-thanks/history.json to prevent duplicates

Authentication

give-thanks authenticates with GitHub in this order:

1. GitHub CLI (gh auth token) — if you have gh installed and logged in
2. GITHUB_TOKEN env var — set this if you don't use gh

Supported ecosystems

| Ecosystem | Resolve by name | Scan dependencies | |---|---|---| | npm | Yes | package.json | | PyPI | Yes | requirements.txt, pyproject.toml | | GitHub | owner/repo | — |

More ecosystems can be added via the resolver/scanner plugin interface.

License

MIT