---
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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