Topics / #reference

Reference projects on GitHub

Reference manuals, cheat sheets and checklists

As of , the most-starred Reference projects on GitHub are awesome (521.2K stars), public-apis (490.2K stars) and awesome-python (328.6K stars). GitHub.Locker tracks 306 Reference repositories with 7.8M stars combined. The fastest-growing on October 18 was HowToLiveBetter, with +632 stars in a day.

306Projects
7.8MStars in total
+3.4KStars in a day

Hot right now

Most stars gained in a day · Oct 18

The all-time top

Top 100 of 306 · by stars

  1. #1 · sindresorhus/awesome

    awesome

    It is 'awesome', the original curated directory of awesome lists maintained by Sindre Sorhus: a hand-picked index of lists about all kinds of interesting topics, from programming languages and platforms to gaming, security, and business.

    521.2K
  2. #2 · public-apis/public-apis

    public-apis

    A collective list of free APIs: a huge, manually curated catalog of public APIs for developers, maintained by the community for years. You do not call it — you browse the catalog and pick third-party APIs to use in your own product.

    490.2K
  3. #3 · vinta/awesome-python

    awesome-python

    Awesome Python is a curated, opinionated guide to the best Python frameworks, libraries, and tools, organized by category — the classic answer to 'I want to do X in Python, which tool should I use?'

    328.6K
  1. 4

    gitignore

    176Kgithub/gitignore

    GitHub's official collection of .gitignore templates: ready-made ignore rules for popular languages, tools and operating systems, and the list behind the .gitignore choosers on GitHub.com.

  2. 5

    30-seconds-of-code

    129.3KChalarangelo/30-seconds-of-code · JavaScript

    30 seconds of code is a collection of short coding articles, each with code snippets, an explanation and examples, published on the project's own website.

  3. 6

    nodebestpractices

    105.7Kgoldbergyoni/nodebestpractices · Dockerfile

    A curated, community-maintained list that summarizes the top Node.js best practices, style guides, and architectural tips, organized into chapters covering architecture, error handling, code style, testing, production readiness, security, performance, and Docker.

  4. 7

    java-design-patterns

    94.8Kiluwatar/java-design-patterns · Java

    A collection of Java implementations for classic software design patterns (Creational, Structural, Behavioral and more), each shown as a well-commented, runnable code example.

  5. 8

    servers

    91.4Kmodelcontextprotocol/servers · TypeScript

    This is a collection of reference server implementations for the Model Context Protocol (MCP), showing how to give LLMs secure, controlled access to tools and data sources.

  6. 9

    cs-video-courses

    83.7KDeveloper-Y/cs-video-courses

    A curated list of university-level Computer Science courses that have publicly available video lectures, covering topics from intro programming to machine learning, security, robotics, and more.

  7. 10

    Apollo-11

    75.5Kchrislgarry/Apollo-11 · Assembly

    The original Apollo 11 Guidance Computer (AGC) source code: the 1969 flight software for the Command Module (Comanche055) and the Lunar Module (Luminary099).

  8. 11

    Front-End-Checklist

    74.5Kthedaviddias/Front-End-Checklist · MDX

    Front-End Checklist is an open-source front-end quality system that turns front-end best practices into a practical review workflow, usable by humans and AI agents via web, MCP server, or this README.

  9. 12

    Java

    66.4KTheAlgorithms/Java · Java

    A GitHub collection of classic algorithms and data structures, each implemented in Java for educational purposes as part of The Algorithms project.

  10. 13

    HowToLiveBetter

    66.4Keternity4719/HowToLiveBetter · HTML

    An evidence-based life guide for mainland China: 677 tips across 34 sections covering health, money, law, work and family, ranked by cost-effectiveness, each citing only journal papers or official documents.

  11. 14

    tldr

    64Ktldr-pages/tldr · Markdown

    tldr-pages is a community-maintained collection of simplified help pages for command-line tools, meant as a more approachable complement to traditional man pages.

  12. 15

    chinese-independent-developer

    61.9K1c7/chinese-independent-developer

    A massive curated list of indie projects made by Chinese independent developers, aggregating apps, SaaS tools, and websites that others are building on the side.

  13. 16

    atom

    60.7Katom/atom · JavaScript

    Atom is a hackable text editor for the 21st century, built on Electron.

  14. 17

    awesome-rust

    60Krust-unofficial/awesome-rust · Rust

    It is the Rust community's awesome-list: a curated catalog of Rust code and resources, where every entry is a link to a project with a one-line description.

  15. 18

    github-cheat-sheet

    59.8Ktiimgreen/github-cheat-sheet

    This is a cheat sheet that collects cool, hidden and not-so-hidden features of Git and GitHub, like URL tricks, keyboard shortcuts, task lists and diff tricks, each explained with a short example.

  16. 19

    project-layout

    56.7Kgolang-standards/project-layout · Makefile

    It is a reference collection of common Go project directory patterns (like /cmd, /pkg, /internal, /api) for structuring real-world Go applications. It is explicitly not an official standard from the core Go team, just a documented set of community conventions.

  17. 20

    design-patterns-for-humans

    48.9Knilbuild/design-patterns-for-humans

    It is a plain-English, real-world-analogy explanation of classic software design patterns (Creational, Structural, Behavioral), each paired with a short PHP code example.

  18. 21

    big-list-of-naughty-strings

    47.7Kminimaxir/big-list-of-naughty-strings · Python

    It is a curated collection of strings with a high probability of breaking software when used as user input, meant to help QA testing of input validation.

  19. 22

    react

    47.1Ktypescript-cheatsheets/react · TypeScript

    A maintained cheatsheet for experienced React developers adopting TypeScript, packed with opinionated best practices and copy-pastable examples you can drop straight into your code.

  20. 23

    awesome-cheatsheets

    46.6KLeCoupa/awesome-cheatsheets · JavaScript

    A curated collection of cheatsheets covering popular programming languages, frameworks, databases, and development tools, each condensed into a single reference file.

  21. 24

    learn-regex

    46.1Kziishaned/learn-regex

    A free, concise guide that teaches regular expressions (regex) from scratch using plain-language explanations and live-testable examples for each concept.

  22. 25

    CppCoreGuidelines

    45.4Kisocpp/CppCoreGuidelines · CSS

    The C++ Core Guidelines are a collaborative set of best-practice rules for writing modern C++ (C++11 and later), covering interfaces, resource management, memory management, and concurrency, with the goal of making code type-safe, leak-free, and fast.

  23. 26

    what-happens-when

    43.4Kalex/what-happens-when

    A long-form, extremely detailed walkthrough answering the classic interview question of what happens when you type google.com into your browser and press enter, tracing the whole path from keypress to rendered page.

  24. 27

    python-patterns

    43.1Kfaif/python-patterns · Python

    A collection of design patterns and idioms implemented in Python, covering Creational, Structural, Behavioral, and other categories (like Borg, Observer, Factory, Visitor), plus a section on anti-patterns to avoid in Python.

  25. 28

    git-flight-rules

    42.6Kk88hudson/git-flight-rules

    Git Flight Rules is a crowdsourced troubleshooting guide: for almost any git 'uh-oh' moment, it tells you exactly what happened and the commands to fix it, modeled on NASA's astronaut flight rules.

  26. 29

    cheat.sh

    41.8Kchubin/cheat.sh · Python

    cheat.sh is a unified cheat-sheet service: ask about a UNIX command or a programming language and get a concise answer right in your terminal, browser or editor. It aggregates the best community-driven cheat sheet repositories, on par with StackOverflow.

  27. 30

    pure-bash-bible

    41.7Kdylanaraps/pure-bash-bible · Shell

    A reference collection of pure Bash functions that replace external tools like sed, awk, cut, and grep for common string, array, file, and terminal tasks.

  28. 31

    zju-icicles

    41.3KQSCTech/zju-icicles · HTML

    A community-maintained collection of course materials for Zhejiang University (ZJU) students, including course-selection guides, electronic textbooks, homework answers, past exam papers, and review notes, shared on GitHub so future students don't have to hunt for the same resources all over again.

  29. 32

    nw.js

    41.1Knwjs/nw.js · JavaScript

    NW.js is an app runtime based on Chromium and Node.js that lets you write native desktop apps using HTML, CSS and JavaScript, calling Node.js modules directly from the DOM.

  30. 33

    styleguide

    39.7Kgoogle/styleguide · HTML

    This is a collection of style guides Google uses for its own and Google-originated open-source code, covering languages like C++, Java, Python, Go, JavaScript, TypeScript, HTML/CSS, Shell, Swift, and more.

  31. 34

    devdocs

    39.6KfreeCodeCamp/devdocs · Ruby

    DevDocs combines documentation from many programming languages, frameworks, and tools into one fast, searchable web interface with offline support, a mobile version, dark theme, and keyboard shortcuts.

  32. 35

    engineering-blogs

    38.8Kkilimchoi/engineering-blogs · Ruby

    A curated list of engineering blogs written by tech companies and individual software engineers, organized alphabetically.

  33. 36

    python-cheatsheet

    38.7Kgto76/python-cheatsheet · Python

    A comprehensive reference sheet covering Python syntax, built-in types, standard library modules, and common pip packages, organized into topics like Collections, Data Types, Syntax Rules, System Calls, Data Formats, and Multimedia.

  34. 37

    interview

    38.2Khuihut/interview · C++

    A large Chinese-language knowledge base summarizing core C/C++ interview topics — language features, STL, data structures, algorithms, operating systems, networking, databases, design patterns, and the linker/loader — aimed at students and job seekers preparing for C/C++ technical interviews.

  35. 38

    REKCARC-TSC-UHT

    37.9KPKUanonym/REKCARC-TSC-UHT · HTML

    A crowd-sourced guide to courses in Tsinghua University's Department of Computer Science and Technology, with course-selection tips, exam strategies, and recommended reading for each class.

  36. 39

    deeplearningbook-chinese

    37.8Kexacity/deeplearningbook-chinese · TeX

    This is the official Chinese translation of the book 'Deep Learning' by Goodfellow, Bengio, and Courville, produced by a group of volunteer translators and later published in print by People's Posts and Telecommunications Press.

  37. 40

    wtfjs

    37.7Kdenysdovhan/wtfjs · JavaScript

    It is a curated handbook (WTFJS) of funny and tricky JavaScript examples, each snippet showing surprising behavior followed by a step-by-step explanation and links to the ECMAScript spec.

  38. 41

    linux-command

    37.2Kjaywcjlove/linux-command · Markdown

    A non-profit, ad-free searchable reference of 600+ Linux commands — manuals, detailed explanations and learning notes collected into one bookmarkable website.

  39. 42

    wtfpython

    37.1Ksatwikkansal/wtfpython · Python

    A free, hugely popular collection of surprising, counter-intuitive Python snippets, each with its real output and an explanation of what happens under the hood.

  40. 43

    leetcode

    36.7Kdoocs/leetcode · Java

    A massive collection of LeetCode solutions, plus solutions for two popular Chinese interview prep books (Coding Interviews, 2nd edition and Cracking the Coding Interview, 6th edition), each problem solved in multiple programming languages.

  41. 44

    og-aws

    36.5Kopen-guides/og-aws · Shell

    A free, community-maintained practical guide to Amazon Web Services — a living reference that consolidates links, tips, gotchas, and best practices, written by engineers who use AWS.

  42. 45

    955.WLB

    36.4Kformulahendry/955.WLB

    A community-maintained whitelist of companies offering around 955 working hours - a stand against China's notorious 996 culture, echoing the 996.ICU project to help people escape overtime.

  43. 46

    How-To-Ask-Questions-The-Smart-Way

    35.9Kryanhanwu/How-To-Ask-Questions-The-Smart-Way · JavaScript

    A Traditional Chinese (繁體中文) translation of Eric S. Raymond and Rick Moen's classic essay 'How To Ask Questions The Smart Way', which teaches programmers how to phrase technical questions so experienced hackers will actually want to answer them.

  44. 47

    awesome-javascript

    35Ksorrycc/awesome-javascript

    A curated list of browser-side JavaScript libraries, resources and 'shiny things' — one of the classic GitHub awesome-lists, with over 35,000 stars.

  45. 48

    the-way-to-go_ZH_CN

    35Kunknwon/the-way-to-go_ZH_CN · Go

    This is the Chinese translation of the Go programming language book 'The Way to Go' by Ivo Balbaert, officially titled 'Go 入门指南' (Go Beginner's Guide) in Chinese.

  46. 49

    awesome-awesomeness

    33.7Kbayandin/awesome-awesomeness · Ruby

    An index of awesome lists: one page linking to hundreds of topic-specific awesome-* collections — from programming languages to DevOps, security and design — each maintained by its own curator.

  47. 50

    linux-insides

    33.7K0xAX/linux-insides · Python

    This is a free, work-in-progress book that explains the internals of the Linux kernel, covering topics like booting, memory management, and system calls in deep technical detail.

  48. 51

    CheatSheetSeries

    33.7KOWASP/CheatSheetSeries · JavaScript

    A collection of concise, high-value cheat sheets covering specific application security topics, maintained by OWASP.

  49. 52

    modern-unix

    33Kibraheemdev/modern-unix

    A curated collection of modern, faster and saner alternatives to common Unix commands - an index of CLI tools like bat, ripgrep, fd, fzf and zoxide.

  50. 53

    MS-DOS

    32.3Kmicrosoft/MS-DOS · Assembly

    The original source code of MS-DOS v1.25, v2.0, and v4.00, published by Microsoft for reference. The v1.25 and v2.0 parts include compiled binaries too, and v4.00 was jointly developed by IBM and Microsoft.

  51. 54

    run

    32.1KThe-Run-Philosophy-Organization/run

    This is the 'Run Philosophy' (润学) repository, a crowdsourced Chinese-language knowledge base that compiles the manifesto, theory, and real-life case studies about emigrating from China, aiming to answer why people leave, where they go, and how they do it.

  52. 55

    GPTs

    32Klinexjlin/GPTs

    A curated collection of leaked system prompts from OpenAI's custom GPTs — the hidden instruction texts behind hundreds of popular GPTs, gathered in one GitHub repo.

  53. 56

    awesome-github-profile-readme

    31.4Kabhisheknaiidu/awesome-github-profile-readme

    A curated catalog of impressive GitHub profile READMEs - the personal landing pages developers add to their profiles - with new entries added continuously.

  54. 57

    OpenAPI-Specification

    31.3KOAI/OpenAPI-Specification · Markdown

    The OpenAPI Specification (OAS) is a community-driven open standard from the OpenAPI Initiative, a Linux Foundation Collaborative Project: a standard, programming language-agnostic way to describe HTTP APIs.

  55. 58

    rust-course

    31Ksunface/rust-course · Rust

    This is '《Rust语言圣经》' (The Rust Language Bible), a free, open Chinese-language Rust programming tutorial/book with over 170 chapters and 1.1 million+ words covering everything from beginner basics to advanced topics.

  56. 59

    awesome-macos-command-line

    31Kherrbischoff/awesome-macos-command-line

    A curated awesome list of commands and tricks for doing useful things from the macOS terminal shell. It is a reference you read, not a piece of software you run.

  57. 60

    applied-ml

    30.7Keugeneyan/applied-ml

    applied-ml is a curated collection of papers, articles, and tech blogs where companies like Airbnb, Uber, Netflix, Google, and DoorDash share how they run data science and machine learning in production.

  58. 61

    HEAD

    30.3Kjoshbuchea/HEAD

    A concise reference guide to the HTML element — which meta, link, title and other tags a web page should have, with recommendations for icons, SEO and social previews.

  59. 62

    python-guide

    29.9Krealpython/python-guide · Batchfile

    The Hitchhiker's Guide to Python — a free, opinionated best-practices guidebook about installing, configuring and using Python day to day.

  60. 63

    awesome-deep-learning

    29.1KChristosChristofidis/awesome-deep-learning

    A curated GitHub list of deep learning tutorials, projects and communities, with about 29,000 stars. It's a jumping-off point for learning the field, not software you run.

  61. 64

    es6features

    29Klukehoban/es6features

    A one-page overview of ECMAScript 6 (ES2015) — the major update to JavaScript and the first since ES5 was standardized in 2009.

  62. 65

    COVID-19

    28.9KCSSEGISandData/COVID-19

    The COVID-19 data repository by Johns Hopkins University's Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) — the case data behind their widely used pandemic Visual Dashboard.

  63. 66

    programmer-job-blacklist

    28.4Kshengxinjing/programmer-job-blacklist · Shell

    A crowd-sourced blacklist of Chinese employers, startups, and tech cofounders accused of withholding wages, abusive labor practices, or betraying programmers, documented through links to Zhihu, Weibo, and news coverage.

  64. 67

    awesome-actions

    28.3Ksdras/awesome-actions

    A curated, categorized index of GitHub Actions: ready-made actions, workflow examples, official resources and tutorials you can plug into your repository's automation.

  65. 68

    go-patterns

    28.3Ktmrts/go-patterns · Go

    This is a curated collection of idiomatic design and application patterns for the Go (Golang) language, covering classic creational/structural/behavioral patterns plus Go-specific categories like synchronization, concurrency, messaging, stability and anti-patterns.

  66. 69

    awesome-falsehood

    27.8Kkdeldycke/awesome-falsehood

    A curated list of falsehoods programmers believe in: articles collecting assumptions that sound obviously true but break on real-world edge cases, like believing a valid email address has exactly one @ character.

  67. 70

    javascript-interview-questions

    27.7Ksudheerj/javascript-interview-questions · JavaScript

    A curated list of around 1000 JavaScript interview questions and answers covering core JS plus React, Angular, and Vue topics.

  68. 71

    hacker-laws

    27.3Kdwmkerr/hacker-laws · HTML

    A curated reference of well-known laws, theories, principles and patterns relevant to software developers and technologists, such as Conway's Law, the CAP Theorem, and the DRY Principle.

  69. 72

    OI-wiki

    27KOI-wiki/OI-wiki · TypeScript

    A free, open and continuously updated wiki of competitive programming (OI/ICPC) knowledge: fundamentals, common problem types, solution strategies and tools, collected so beginners can learn systematically instead of digging through scattered articles.

  70. 73

    JCSprout

    26.8KcrossoverJie/JCSprout · Java

    JCSprout ('Java Core Sprout') is a Chinese-language knowledge base of core Java topics: a curated collection of articles on collections, multithreading, JVM internals, distributed systems, frameworks, algorithms and Netty, with over 26k GitHub stars.

  71. 74

    go

    26.3Kdatasciencemasters/go

    The Open Source Data Science Masters (OSDSM) is a free, self-guided curriculum that collects the best open university courses, books, and tutorials to prepare someone for an entry-level Data Scientist role.

  72. 75

    awesome-design-systems

    26.2Kalexpate/awesome-design-systems

    A curated list of design systems — the documented principles, best practices and UI/pattern libraries that help a team build digital products consistently.

  73. 76

    pumpkin-book

    26.1Kdatawhalechina/pumpkin-book

    Pumpkin Book (南瓜书) is a companion study guide that fills in the derivation details Zhou Zhihua's 'Machine Learning' textbook (known as the Watermelon Book, 西瓜书) deliberately left out.

  74. 77

    Rust

    26.1KTheAlgorithms/Rust · Rust

    A free, open-source collection of classic algorithms implemented in Rust — the Rust volume of TheAlgorithms on GitHub. It exists for education: you read the code to learn how each algorithm works.

  75. 78

    modern-cpp-tutorial

    25.9Kchangkun/modern-cpp-tutorial · C++

    A free book teaching modern C++ features from C++11 through C++26, written for people who already know traditional C++ (C++98 or earlier) and want a fast way to learn the new stuff.

  76. 79

    idiomatic.js

    25.7Krwaldron/idiomatic.js

    A style guide document laying out principles for writing consistent, idiomatic JavaScript code, covering whitespace, syntax, naming, type checking, and comments.

  77. 80

    Awesome-Linux-Software

    25.6Kluong-komorebi/Awesome-Linux-Software · HTML

    A curated community list of Linux applications and tools for everyday users and developers — a catalog you browse to discover software, not a program you install.

  78. 81

    awesome-algorithms

    25.6Ktayllan/awesome-algorithms

    A curated list of places to learn and practice algorithms: links to courses, books, blogs, visualizers and problem sites, sorted by level and topic.

  79. 82

    modern-js-cheatsheet

    25.6Kmbeaudru/modern-js-cheatsheet

    A cheatsheet covering the modern JavaScript (ES6+) concepts you'll frequently run into in contemporary codebases, like React projects, aimed at developers who already know basic JS but struggle with newer syntax.

  80. 83

    bitcoinbook

    25.3Kbitcoinbook/bitcoinbook · HTML

    This is the complete text of Mastering Bitcoin, a technical book that explains what Bitcoin is and how it works, shared as open source alongside its O'Reilly print and ebook editions.

  81. 84

    Public-APIs

    24Kn0shake/Public-APIs

    A community-maintained public list of APIs from around the web that expose their resources for consumption, organized by category in a single README.

  82. 85

    learn-go-with-tests

    23.9Kquii/learn-go-with-tests · Go

    This is a free book that teaches the Go programming language by having you write tests first, following test-driven development (TDD) practices.

  83. 86

    angular-styleguide

    23.6Kjohnpapa/angular-styleguide · Vim Snippet

    An opinionated style guide for Angular: documented conventions for syntax, structure, and building Angular applications, written by John Papa for development teams.

  84. 87

    api-guidelines

    23.3Kmicrosoft/api-guidelines

    A collection of guidelines published by Microsoft for designing consistent, well-behaved RESTful web APIs, shared publicly to foster dialogue in the broader API community.

  85. 88

    chinese-programmer-wrong-pronunciation

    23.3Kshimohq/chinese-programmer-wrong-pronunciation · JavaScript

    A reference list of English programming and tech terms that Chinese programmers commonly mispronounce, pairing each word with correct British and American audio pronunciations, the typical wrong pronunciation, and a Chinese meaning.

  86. 89

    eng-practices

    23.3Kgoogle/eng-practices

    Google's Engineering Practices documentation — a public collection of guides distilling the engineering practices Google applies across all languages and projects, currently focused on its Code Review Guidelines.

  87. 90

    docker-cheat-sheet

    22.6Kwsargent/docker-cheat-sheet

    A community-maintained Docker cheat sheet that walks through installation, containers, images, networks, volumes, links, Dockerfile syntax, and best practices in one long reference document.

  88. 91

    react-redux-links

    22.5Kmarkerikson/react-redux-links

    A curated collection of tutorial and resource links on React, Redux, ES6, webpack, and more, hand-picked by Mark Erikson as a starting point for learning the React-Redux ecosystem.

  89. 92

    DesignPatternsPHP

    22.2KDesignPatternsPHP/DesignPatternsPHP · PHP

    A collection of well-known design patterns with small sample implementations in PHP 8.x, aimed at teaching not just how each pattern works but when to reach for it.

  90. 93

    core

    22Kdotnet/core · PowerShell

    The official home of .NET release notes and news: a table of every version under active support or development, with release dates, support phases, latest patch versions, and links to the full notes.

  91. 94

    skill-map

    22KTeamStuQ/skill-map · HTML

    A Geekbang-run open collection of skill maps for programmers: each map lays out the knowledge tree for one IT field and comes with learning paths and curated resources to guide what to learn next.

  92. 95

    IntelliJ-IDEA-Tutorial

    22Kjudasn/IntelliJ-IDEA-Tutorial

    A free, community-maintained Simplified Chinese tutorial for IntelliJ IDEA — a series of short chapters that take you from first install to advanced IDE skills. On GitHub since 2015, with 22k+ stars.

  93. 96

    nowinandroid

    21.9Kandroid/nowinandroid · Kotlin

    Now in Android is a fully functional Android app built entirely with Kotlin and Jetpack Compose. It doubles as an official reference for Android design and development best practices and, as a running app, delivers news updates about Android development.

  94. 97

    modern-cpp-features

    21.9KAnthonyCalandra/modern-cpp-features

    A cheatsheet listing and explaining the new language and library features introduced in each modern C++ standard: C++11, C++14, C++17, C++20, and C++23.

  95. 98

    tips

    21.7Kgit-tips/tips · JavaScript

    A community-maintained collection of the most commonly used git tips and tricks — short, ready-to-copy commands for everyday Git tasks, translated into eight other languages.

  96. 99

    awesome-dotnet

    21.7Kquozd/awesome-dotnet

    A curated, community-driven catalog of well-known .NET libraries, tools, frameworks and software, sorted by task into roughly a hundred categories.

  97. 100

    typescript-book

    21.6Kbasarat/typescript-book · TypeScript

    TypeScript Deep Dive, a free and open-source book that teaches professional TypeScript — its description calls it the definitive guide and possibly the best TypeScript book.

Showing the 100 most-starred of 306. See every one in the catalog.

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