| title: REST API endpoints for watching | |
| shortTitle: Watching | |
| intro: Use the REST API to subscribe to notifications for activity in a repository. | |
| allowTitleToDifferFromFilename: true | |
| versions: # DO NOT MANUALLY EDIT. CHANGES WILL BE OVERWRITTEN BY A 🤖 | |
| fpt: '*' | |
| ghec: '*' | |
| ghes: '*' | |
| topics: | |
| - API | |
| autogenerated: rest | |
| ## About watching | |
| You can use the REST API to subscribe to notifications for activity in a repository. To bookmark a repository instead, see [AUTOTITLE](/rest/activity/starring). | |
| ### Watching versus starring | |
| In August 2012, we [changed the way watching | |
| works](https://github.com/blog/1204-notifications-stars) on {% data variables.product.prodname_dotcom %}. Some API | |
| client applications may still be using the original "watcher" endpoints for accessing | |
| this data. You should now use the "star" endpoints instead. For more information, [AUTOTITLE](/rest/activity/starring) and the [changelog post](https://developer.github.com/changes/2012-09-05-watcher-api/). | |
| In responses from the REST API, `subscribers_count` corresponds to the number of watchers, whereas `watchers`, `watchers_count`, and `stargazers_count` correspond to the number of users that have starred a repository. | |
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