badges/shields · error · InvalidResponse

invalid branch

Error message

invalid branch

What it means

The GitHub commit-activity service calls transform() on the GraphQL commit history response and throws InvalidResponse with message 'invalid branch' when the repository object is missing. This means GitHub returned a response without the expected `repository.object` structure, typically because the requested branch does not exist. It signals bad user input (unknown branch) surfaced as an invalid-response error rather than a network failure.

Source

Thrown at services/github/github-commit-activity.service.js:167

      options: {
        searchParams: {
          sha: branch,
          author: authorFilter,
          per_page: '1',
          since,
        },
      },
      httpErrors: httpErrorsFor('repo or branch not found'),
    })
  }

  static transform({ data }) {
    const {
      repository: { object: repo },
    } = data

    if (!repo) {
      throw new InvalidResponse({ prettyMessage: 'invalid branch' })
    }

    return repo.history.totalCount
  }

  static transformAuthorFilter({ res }) {
    const parsed = parseLinkHeader(res.headers.link)

    if (!parsed) {
      return 0
    }

    return parsed.last.page
  }

  static getIntervalQueryStartDate({ interval }) {
    const now = new Date()

View on GitHub (pinned to 766fd8bc89)

Solutions

1. Verify the branch name in the badge/URL matches an existing branch (git ls-remote --heads <repo>).
2. Update stale badge URLs after renaming the default branch (master to main).
3. Omit the branch parameter to use the repository's default branch instead of hardcoding one.

Example fix

// before
[![commit activity](https://img.shields.io/github/commit-activity/m/user/repo?branch=master)]()
// after
[![commit activity](https://img.shields.io/github/commit-activity/m/user/repo?branch=main)]()

// verify the branch exists before requesting
const heads = await fetch('https://api.github.com/repos/OWNER/REPO/branches?per_page=100').then(r => r.json());
if (!heads.some(b => b.name === branch)) throw new Error(`branch '${branch}' does not exist`);

function isCommitHistoryData(data) {
  return data != null && data.repository != null && data.repository.object != null && typeof data.repository.object.totalCount === 'number';
}

try {
  const count = await getCommitActivity({ user, repo, branch });
} catch (e) {
  if (e.prettyMessage === 'invalid branch') {
    // fall back to default branch or surface a config error
  } else throw e;
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling the commit-activity badge/endpoint for a user/repo where the `branch` query parameter names a branch that does not exist in the repository, so the GraphQL query for that ref's history returns null and destructuring yields no `repo` object.

Common situations: Default branch renamed or deleted (e.g. master -> main) while badges still point at the old branch; typos in the branch param in a README badge URL; private/renamed repos where the ref resolution fails.

Related errors

• undecodable content
• Go version missing in go.mod
• user/org not found
• invalid response data from auth endpoint
• unparseable svg response

AI-assisted analysis of badges/shields@766fd8bc89 (2026-08-30). Data as JSON: /api/errors/e7024d16718a4c39. Report an issue: GitHub.