One Liner to Download the Latest Release from Github Repo

One Liner to Download the Latest Release from Github Repo.md

• Use curl to get the JSON response for the latest release
• Use grep to find the line containing file URL
• Use cut and tr to extract the URL
• Use wget to download it

curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/jgm/pandoc/releases/latest \
| grep "browser_download_url.*deb" \
| cut -d : -f 2,3 \
| tr -d \" \
| wget -qi -

Just curl and grep:

curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/caddyserver/xcaddy/releases/latest | grep '"browser_download_url":' | grep 'amd64.deb' | grep -vE '(\.pem|\.sig)' | grep -o 'https://[^"]*'

https://github.com/caddyserver/xcaddy/releases/download/v0.4.2/xcaddy_0.4.2_linux_amd64.deb

curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/aptly-dev/aptly/releases/latest | grep '"browser_download_url":' | grep 'amd64.deb' | grep -o 'https://[^"]*'

https://github.com/aptly-dev/aptly/releases/download/v1.5.0/aptly_1.5.0_amd64.deb

My apologies if it borrows from other answers.

dra is making huge strides in simplifying the download process.

@NiceGuyIT thanks for bringing it up.

Nice examples, thanks to all. Stil, not always is "browser_download_url" available.
Also, we should assume that *.deb is not enough, rather use amd64.deb or x86_64.deb.
It would be nice if we had permanent file name, to directly use wget of download link, but we also have file names with version.
lastversion works, just it has not in-built install for deb as for rpm.

Here is the example I assume should work for install of https://github.com/rustdesk/rustdesk/releases/latest (which does not work with most of solutions):
curl -sL https://github.com/rustdesk/rustdesk/releases/latest | grep "https.*releases/download.*amd64\|x86_64\.deb" | grep -oP 'href="\Khttps:.+?"' | sed 's/"//' | wget -i-

Or:
curl -sL https://github.com/rustdesk/rustdesk/releases/latest | grep -wo "https.*x86_64.deb\|https.*amd64.deb"

I know this gist is for latest regular release but what if you need the latest pre-release like at tasmota/install where certain assets are ONLY built in pre-releases and not in the regular ones. I was unable to get lastversion to do this even with pre-release option because of how the CI generated the pre-releases.

the operative line being
url=$(curl --silent https://api.github.com/repos/tasmota/install/releases | grep "browser_download_url\": \"" | grep $bin | head -1 | sed 's/^.*: //' | xargs)

So for example.

unset dev
if [[ $1 == "--dev" ]]; then
dev=true 
shift 1
fi

chip=${1@L}
[[ $chip ]] && chip=${chip@L}
type=$2
bin=tasmota32$chip$([[ $type ]] && echo "-$type").factory.bin    

if ls $bin >/dev/null 2>&1 ; then
   echo $bin already exists locally so using it.
   echo delete $bin first and run again to pull the latest   
else
   if [[ $dev ]]; then
       echo downloading $bin from latest dev release
       url=$(curl --silent https://api.github.com/repos/tasmota/install/releases | grep "browser_download_url\": \"" | grep $bin | head -1 | sed 's/^.*: //' | xargs) 
       echo downloading $url
       if ! wget -O $bin "$url"; then
        echo can not find any assest for $bin at Tasmota Github Install Repo
        exit  
       fi
   else
      echo pulling latest regular release version of $bin
      url=http://ota.tasmota.com/tasmota32/release/$bin
      if ! wget -O $bin $url; then
      echo could not download $bin
      echo might be a development only binary try using --dev flag
      exit
      fi
   fi
fi

Another one liner only using only wget and downloading the first (newest file from the releases):

wget -qO- --max-redirect=10 https://github.com/rustdesk/rustdesk/releases | grep -wo "https.*x86_64.deb\|https.*amd64.deb" | head -n 1 | xargs -I {} wget -O test.deb {}

not my original idea, but another way of doing this... never seen jq before, i love json so this will become a new fav...

curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/bitwarden/clients/releases/latest | jq -r '.assets[] | select(.name | contains ("zip")) | .browser_download_url' | head -n 1 | xargs -I {} wget {}

does anyone realize that piping multiple commands (from 4 up to 10) is not elegant?
And the more you insist, the more it looks bad.

1 pipe and 2 commands (curl, awk) is enough, is more effective, and it does not require installing additional tools:

URL="https://api.github.com/repos/jgraph/drawio-desktop/releases/latest"

curl -s $URL | awk -F\" '/browser_download_url.*.deb/{system("curl -OL " $(NF-1))}'

In this case it fetches two artifacts: one for ARM one for AMD64, but if you want to fetch only one artifact, you don't need another 3 pipes, and you do as follows:

URL="https://api.github.com/repos/jgraph/drawio-desktop/releases/latest"

curl -s $URL | awk -F\" '/browser_download_url.*.deb/&&/amd64/{system("curl -OL " $(NF-1))}'

Lol...
If you have the filname just do:

https://github.com/<USER>/<REPO>/releases/latest/download/<FILE_NAME>

example:

wget https://github.com/cloudflare/cloudflared/releases/latest/download/cloudflared-linux-amd64

Sometimes newer versions than the latest ones are released as pre-release in repos.

An example, (Powershell) command to always download the newer version even if it is pre-release:

powershell -c "(Invoke-RestMethod -uri https://api.github.com/repos/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu/releases)[0].assets.browser_download_url | Where-Object {$_ -like '*OpenShellSetup*'}"

Update Manager Class For C# APP using Github

Release the MSI after every release and update new version number to the readme file

Refer to the Gist:- Update Manager Class

Refer to the Repo:- Github Repo

private static async Task<string> GetLatestVersionFromGithub()
{
	string fileUrl = "url_containing_latest_version_number";

	using (HttpClient client = new HttpClient())
	{
		string cacheBuster = DateTime.UtcNow.Ticks.ToString();
		string requestUrl = $"{fileUrl}?cb={cacheBuster}";
		return await client.GetStringAsync(requestUrl);
	}
}

private static void UpdateApp(string filePath)
{
	string batchFilePath = Path.Combine(Path.GetTempPath(), "update.bat");

	string batchScript = $@"
                         @echo off
                         echo Uninstalling program...
                         msiexec /x {{product_code_of_your_app}} /qb

                         echo Starting setup file...
                         start """" ""{filePath}""                            
                         ";

	File.WriteAllText(batchFilePath, batchScript);
	Process.Start(new ProcessStartInfo(batchFilePath) { UseShellExecute = true });
	Environment.Exit(0);
}

private static async Task DownloadLatestVersion()
{
	var url = "https://github.com/{user_name}/{repo_name}/releases/latest/download/{name_of_msi}.msi";
	var filePath = Path.Combine(Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.Desktop), "PubEntrySetup.msi");

	using (HttpClient client = new HttpClient())
	using (HttpResponseMessage response = await client.GetAsync(url, HttpCompletionOption.ResponseHeadersRead))
	using (Stream streamToReadFrom = await response.Content.ReadAsStreamAsync())
	using (Stream streamToWriteTo = File.Open(filePath, FileMode.Create))
		await streamToReadFrom.CopyToAsync(streamToWriteTo);


	UpdateApp(filePath);
}

public static async Task CheckForUpdates()
{
	string fileContent = await GetLatestVersionFromGithub();

	if (fileContent.Contains("Latest Version = "))
	{
		string latestVersion = fileContent.Substring(fileContent.IndexOf("Latest Version = ") + 17, 7);
		string currentVersion = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetName().Version.ToString();
		if (latestVersion != currentVersion)
			if (MessageBox.Show("New Version Available. Do you want to update?", "Update Available", MessageBoxButtons.YesNo) == DialogResult.Yes)
				await DownloadLatestVersion();
	}
}

From batch scripts on Windows, you can call PowerShell without directly using its shell.:

First download grep.exe from this fairly popular but unmantained repo -because findstr sucks-

powershell iwr https://github.com/bmatzelle/gow/raw/refs/heads/master/bin/grep.exe -OutFile grep.exe

Then you can download your files like this.

set url=https://api.github.com/repos/user/repo/releases/latest
powershell irm %url% | grep -o 'https.*download.*zip' | powershell iwr -OutFile file.zip

Just replace user/repo and zip.

for filtring and download something like beta release

curl -sL https://api.github.com/repos/telegramdesktop/tdesktop/releases
| jq -r '.[] | select(.prerelease==true) | .assets[] | select(.browser_download_url | contains("tar.xz")) | .browser_download_url'
| wget -i-