a simple python script to check/warn on Github's status via their API.

check_github.py

#!/usr/bin/env python2.7

from urllib2 import Request, urlopen, URLError

# for Python3 use the following:
# from urllib.request import Request, urlopen
# from urllib.error import URLError

import sys
import json

STATUS_URL = "https://status.github.com/api/status.json"
MESSAGE_URL = "https://status.github.com/api/last-message.json"

req = Request(STATUS_URL)
try:
    response = urlopen(req)
except URLError as e:
    if hasattr(e, 'reason'):
        print('Github check is WARNING: ', e.reason)
        sys.exit(3)
    elif hasattr(e, 'code'):
        print('Github check is WARNING: ', e.code)
        sys.exit(3)
else:
    # everything is fine
    data = json.load(response)
    status = data['status']
    last_updated = data['last_updated']

    req = Request(MESSAGE_URL)
    try:
        response = urlopen(req)
    except URLError as e:
        if hasattr(e, 'reason'):
            print('Github check is WARNING: ', e.reason)
            sys.exit(1)
        elif hasattr(e, 'code'):
            print('Github check is WARNING: ', e.code)
            sys.exit(1)
    else:
        # everything is fine
        data = json.load(response)
        body = data['body']

        #Determine state to pass to Nagios
        #CRITICAL = 2
        #WARNING = 1
        #OK = 0
        if status == 'major':
            print("Github is CRITICAL (%s): %s (%s)" % (status, body, last_updated))
            sys.exit(2)
        elif status == 'minor':
            print("Github is WARNING (%s): %s (%s)" % (status, body, last_updated))
            sys.exit(1)
        elif status == 'good':
            print("Github is OK (%s): %s (%s)" % (status, status, last_updated))
            sys.exit(0)