Farewell to OctoLinker
After nine incredible years, I'm officially announcing the end of OctoLinker. This browser extension, which made GitHub navigation more intuitive by transforming package dependencies into clickable links, is no longer functional due to GitHub's new code view released on May 8, 2023.
A Journey Worth Remembering
When I first launched OctoLinker (then called GitHub Linker) back in December 2013, the npm registry had just 44,930 packages. Yes, it was that small! The initial version simply linked dependencies in package.json files, but I had no idea how far this project would go.
Over the years, we expanded to support numerous languages and package managers, from JavaScript to PHP, Ruby, Python, Rust, Go, Java, and many more. What started as a simple tool grew into something used by thousands of developers daily.
The journey wasn't without challenges. As the npm registry expanded, generating static mapping files became increasingly difficult. In 2015, we introduced the Live-Resolver API to handle package links in real-time, ensuring up-to-date links without compromising performance.
By 2019, we completely reworked our link resolution approach to insert actual links into the DOM during initial page load instead of just listening to click events. This major upgrade was made possible thanks to our amazing sponsors Vercel and Memetria.
By the Numbers
- At its peak, OctoLinker had over 35,000 active users
- Support for over 20 lanagues and tools
- Our API resolved 1.8 million links weekly (about 3 links per second!)
- The project earned 5,000+ GitHub stars
- OctoLinker was available on Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari
- It was selected as one of the 17,000 "Greatest Hits" for the GitHub Archive Project
Thank You to the Community
None of this would have been possible without the incredible contributors who joined me along the way. Special thanks to:
- Christan Kahl for the amazing OctoLinker logo.
- Joseph Frazier who joined as a core contributor in 2016.
- Brian Surowiec who came aboard in 2017.
- Fregante who joined in 2021.
- Barry vd. Heuvel who made the first contribution, adding PHP Composer support.
- Complex GmbH & Co.KG, Vercel and Memetria for support and sponsoring.
- And to the thousands of users who provided feedback, reported issues, and spread the word.
OctoLinker Timeline
For those interested in a more detailed look at OctoLinker's journey, I've created a comprehensive OctoLinker timeline. There, you'll find every major milestone, feature release, and community achievement from the past nine years, along with screenshots and insights into the project's evolution. It's a visual history of OctoLinker from day one in 2013 to its final days.
What's Next?
While OctoLinker has reached its end, there are plenty of other great browser extensions out there aiming to improve your GitHub experience. You can find some of them on the Awesome Browser Extensions for GitHub list.
As for me, I'm continuing my passion for consistency and productivity on GitHub with my new project, Pull Request Badge GitHub App. I hope to see some of you there!
A Final Word
Building and maintaining OctoLinker has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my development career. What started as a small side project grew into something that genuinely helped developers around the world work more efficiently. Though I'm sad to see it go, I'm incredibly grateful for everything OctoLinker became and everyone who made it possible.
Thank you for nine amazing years!
