Is there a stable url to always get the default branch in github?

Question

In past you could in most cases just add blob/master/ to a github url get the raw file, i.e. https://github.com/jacoco/jbang-catalog/blob/master/jbang-catalog.json`

Now with old repos using master but new using main that trick don't work on new repos.

Is there a way to avoid having to do a call to the rest api to find default branch main ?

like a magic marker like blob/@default/ or similar ?

Answer 1

One solution is to use HEAD. That symbolic name will give you tip of the default branch no matter what its name is.

If you prefer it to redirect to the default branch then instead use - for example https://github.com/jacoco/jbang-catalog/blob/-/jbang-catalog.json