fix: support for Ghost GH user (for deleted users) #1249

1ucian0 · 2025-08-31T21:34:03Z

Fixes #988

Alternative to #1161

Version Information

Please provide:

The version of Python you're using: 3.11
The version of pip you used to install github3.py: 25.2
The version of:
- github3.py: 4.0.1
- requests: 2.32.5
- uritemplate: 4.2.0
- python-dateutil: 2.9.0.post0

Minimum Reproducible Example

from github3 import GitHub

gh = GitHub()
repo = gh.repository('qiskit-community','qiskit-qec')
print(next(repo.releases()))

Exception information

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<redacted>/github3.py/b.py", line 5, in <module>
    print(next(repo.releases()))
          ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "<redacted>/src/github3/structs.py", line 142, in __next__
    return next(self.__i__)
           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "<redacted>/src/github3/structs.py", line 131, in __iter__
    yield cls(i)
          ^^^^^^
  File "<redacted>/src/github3/models.py", line 49, in __init__
    self._update_attributes(json)
  File "<redacted>/src/github3/repos/release.py", line 103, in _update_attributes
    self.author = users.ShortUser(release["author"], self)
                  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "<redacted>/src/github3/models.py", line 49, in __init__
    self._update_attributes(json)
  File "<redacted>/src/github3/users.py", line 311, in _update_attributes
    self.avatar_url = user["avatar_url"]
                      ~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
TypeError: 'NoneType' object is not subscriptable

What is exceptional about what you're seeing versus what you expected to see.

Deleted users break the lib. From the conversation #1161 (comment) , it seems that github3 should create a GhostUser when github3.users.User is called with None.

Some things to consider:

I think hardcoding the ghost user JSON is better than fetching it, because it never changes.
I didnt know how to create cassettes, so I did not write an integration test. I think it would be great to have one. Pointers?
I ran into a typo in the docs. Unrelated.

sigmavirus24

I'm not sure that an integration test with betamax is necessary, but if you were to copy

github3.py/tests/integration/test_github.py

Line 762 in 08fe91c

def test_user(self):

for example, an integration test could look like

    def test_not_found_user_returns_default_ghost(self):
        """Test the ability to retrieve a User."""
        cassette_name = self.cassette_name("not_found_user_returns_default_ghost")
        with self.recorder.use_cassette(cassette_name):
            ghost = self.gh.user("sigmavirus124")

        assert isinstance(ghost, github3.users.User)
        try:
            assert repr(ghost)
        except UnicodeEncodeError:
            self.fail(
                "Regression caught. See PR #52. Names must be utf-8"
                " encoded"
            )

Then run the test and check-in the resulting JSON file.

sigmavirus24 · 2025-09-02T12:47:37Z

src/github3/users.py

+            json = {
+                "login": "ghost",
+                "id": 10137,
+                "node_id": "MDQ6VXNlcjEwMTM3",
+                "avatar_url": "https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/10137?v"
+                "=4",
+                "gravatar_id": "",
+                "url": "https://api.github.com/users/ghost",
+                "html_url": "https://github.com/ghost",
+                "followers_url": "https://api.github.com/users/ghost/followers",
+                "following_url": "https://api.github.com/users/ghost/following"
+                "{/other_user}",
+                "gists_url": "https://api.github.com/users/ghost/gists{/gist_id"
+                "}",
+                "starred_url": "https://api.github.com/users/ghost/starred{/own"
+                "er}{/repo}",
+                "subscriptions_url": "https://api.github.com/users/ghost/subscr"
+                "iptions",
+                "organizations_url": "https://api.github.com/users/ghost/orgs",
+                "repos_url": "https://api.github.com/users/ghost/repos",
+                "events_url": "https://api.github.com/users/ghost/events{/priva"
+                "cy}",
+                "received_events_url": "https://api.github.com/users/ghost/rece"
+                "ived_events",
+                "type": "User",
+                "user_view_type": "public",
+                "site_admin": False,
+                "name": "Deleted user",
+                "company": None,
+                "blog": "",
+                "location": "Nothing to see here, move along.",
+                "email": None,
+                "hireable": None,
+                "bio": "Hi, I'm @ghost! I take the place of user accounts that "
+                "have been deleted.\n:ghost:\n",
+                "twitter_username": None,
+                "public_repos": 0,
+                "public_gists": 0,
+                "followers": 11584,
+                "following": 0,
+                "created_at": "2008-05-13T06:14:25Z",
+                "updated_at": "2018-04-10T17:22:33Z",
+            }


I'd rather pull this into a module constant, e.g,

_ghost_json: typing.Final[typing.Dict[str, typing.Any]] = { # .. }

Check out 6c3b789 to see if I interpreted you correctly. Or did you mean in src/github3/__init__.py ?

sigmavirus24 · 2025-09-02T12:50:05Z

tests/unit/test_users.py

+
+    def setUp(self):
+        """Use None to create a ghost user."""
+        self.session = self.create_session_mock()


Suggested change

self.session = self.create_session_mock()

super().setup()

There's also after_setup() for overriding things:

github3.py/tests/unit/helper.py

Lines 192 to 194 in 08fe91c

def after_setup(self):

"""No-op method to avoid people having to override setUp."""

pass

I took the after_setup approach in 615e464

sigmavirus24 · 2025-09-02T13:52:31Z

Also looks like PyCQA/doc8#162 still isn't fixed.

for more information, see https://pre-commit.ci

1ucian0 · 2025-09-05T23:18:47Z

I'm not sure that an integration test with betamax is necessary,

The thing is... this only happens, as far as I can tell, in very corner cases with releases. For example, gh.issue("sigmavirus24", "github3.py", 6) works well. but gh.repository("qiskit-community", "qiskit-qec").release(63525446) does not.

but if you were to copy ...

thanks! I added tests.integration.test_github.TestGitHub.test_release_by_ghostuser .

If you think this is an overkill, we can remove it.

sigmavirus24

One last comment I'd request you address, otherwise this looks really great

src/github3/users.py

tests/integration/test_github.py

…#r2326274006

for more information, see https://pre-commit.ci

1ucian0 · 2025-09-13T18:30:25Z

Let me know if I should do something else. btw, thanks for your support so far :)

creates a ghost user when github3.users.User is None

3926355

sigmavirus24 requested changes Sep 2, 2025

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1ucian0 and others added 4 commits September 5, 2025 12:36

addressing sigmavirus24#1249 (comment)

6c3b789

user after_setup to override self.instance

615e464

integration test

d4e838c

[pre-commit.ci] auto fixes from pre-commit.com hooks

dac3e1d

for more information, see https://pre-commit.ci

sigmavirus24 reviewed Sep 5, 2025

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1ucian0 and others added 2 commits September 9, 2025 23:37

addressing https://github.com/sigmavirus24/github3.py/pull/1249/files…

12fc382

…#r2326274006

[pre-commit.ci] auto fixes from pre-commit.com hooks

9935063

for more information, see https://pre-commit.ci

sigmavirus24 approved these changes Sep 13, 2025

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fix: support for Ghost GH user (for deleted users) #1249

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	def after_setup(self):
	"""No-op method to avoid people having to override setUp."""
	pass

fix: support for Ghost GH user (for deleted users) #1249

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1ucian0 commented Aug 31, 2025

Version Information

Minimum Reproducible Example

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