docs(readme): add users info

[gouravkhunger]

Hi there!

Thank you for this awesome project! This PR adds a relevant auto-updated shields.io style network dependents badge in the README.md file to showcase its impact.

I've created this using an open source tool I built some time ago and plan to maintain for long. It also creates an image preview of the users in the readme.

Here's how they would look for your repository:

I have not included the full user's image yet to keep the readme minimal.

Please feel free to close the PR if you don't want to have this!

[tiagosiebler]

Hi @gouravkhunger - thanks for the thoughtful contribution! I'd love to enhance the readme with this kind of visibility on project impact, it's quite nice to see!

However, given the nature of my projects I have to be extremely vigilant in the changes introduced into my projects. I'm not comfortable adding a privileged GitHub action that can regularly inject code change into the repo. If there's a way to have this badge work like other shields.io badges work, I'd love to add an image embed for it - but that should not require a new GitHub action.

[gouravkhunger]

@tiagosiebler thanks for the reply and your interest! This action does not inject any code into repo. It basically scraps the data and submits to the backend. The backend generates those images dynamically. Once action is setup and image is embedded, everything is automatic. Backend serves the data that action submits. Of course we can bypass the action, and fetch the count from github on backend. but here’s why I implemented such an approach. As mentioned in the section linked, id-token permission can not grant write permission to the repo.

I intend to keep the action and backend backwards compatible, so if you wish to I can update the action to used pinned SHA instead of v0.1.4 tag to make things more tamper proof.

[tiagosiebler]

Thanks for the quick reply - while I appreciate that, I would still prefer for a way to do this without introducing a github action.

[gouravkhunger]

Sure @tiagosiebler I’ll take a look at what I can do!

[gouravkhunger]

Hi @tiagosiebler I have removed the need to have github action. Here's your badge! You can add these to other projects too if you would like. customizations are possible.

[tiagosiebler]

Neat, is it possible to get an image like your second one? showing the profiles next to the 1.2k?

Btw your PR is also making unnecessary changes to the readme text (table of contents etc), please revert those.

[gouravkhunger]

@tiagosiebler I've added the option to generate image without action as well. But there are many limitations, primarily:

• the users picked for the image are the first few from dependents page. whereas the action provides a lot more configurations, like parsing all pages showcasing users with the most stars.
• the quality of the avatars will be scaled down to preserve server storage. if using the github action, they are served at max resolution.
• image is cached for 7 days and refreshes on new fetch request there upon. with action, it updates as often the action runs.

But I hope these serve the purpose. Here's the image for this repo:

[gouravkhunger]

your PR is also making unnecessary changes to the readme text

I'm sorry this must be some ToC extension in my IDE. I'll revert. thanks for the headsup!

[tiagosiebler]

Seems to load for me now - strange but looks great, thanks! Will merge

[gouravkhunger]

Awesome! Really appreciate your patience while I sorted things out. Thanks!

[gouravkhunger]

Please feel free to use it on other repositories if you wish to. As mentioned I plan to maintain the service for long and I'm always open to feedback.

[tiagosiebler]

Appreciate your contribution! Thanks for this.