diff --git a/backend/bin/fetchAndPrintGitHubRepo.js b/backend/bin/fetchAndPrintGitHubRepo.js
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2033844
--- /dev/null
+++ b/backend/bin/fetchAndPrintGitHubRepo.js
@@ -0,0 +1,50 @@
+/*
+ * Command-line utility to fetch GitHub data using the API in
+ * ../fetchGitHubRepo, and print it to stdout. Useful for testing or
+ * saving some data to disk.
+ *
+ * Usage:
+ *
+ *   node bin/fetchAndPrintGitHubRepo.js REPO_OWNER REPO_NAME [TOKEN]
+ *
+ * where TOKEN is an optional GitHub authentication token, as generated
+ * from https://github.com/settings/tokens/new.
+ */
+
+const fetchGitHubRepo = require("../fetchGitHubRepo");
+
+function parseArgs() {
+  const argv = process.argv.slice(2);
+  const fail = () => {
+    const invocation = process.argv.slice(0, 2).join(" ");
+    throw new Error(`Usage: ${invocation} REPO_OWNER REPO_NAME [TOKEN]`);
+  };
+  if (argv.length < 2) {
+    fail();
+  }
+  const [repoOwner, repoName, ...rest] = argv;
+  const result = {repoOwner, repoName};
+  if (rest.length === 1) {
+    const token = rest[0];
+    // Sanity check on the token structure
+    if (token.length !== 40) {
+      throw new Error(
+        "Token, when provided, must be a 40-character hex string"
+      );
+    }
+    // We'll assume it's a hex string.
+    result.token = token;
+  } else if (rest.length > 1) {
+    fail();
+  }
+  return result;
+}
+
+function main() {
+  const args = parseArgs();
+  fetchGitHubRepo(args.repoOwner, args.repoName, args.token).then((data) => {
+    console.log(JSON.stringify(data));
+  });
+}
+
+main();
diff --git a/backend/fetchGitHubRepo.js b/backend/fetchGitHubRepo.js
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..80e55c6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/backend/fetchGitHubRepo.js
@@ -0,0 +1,130 @@
+/*
+ * API to scrape data from a GitHub repo using the GitHub API. See the
+ * docstring of the default export for more details.
+ */
+
+const octokitFactory = require("@octokit/rest");
+
+/**
+ * Scrape data from a GitHub repo using the GitHub API.
+ *
+ * @param {String} repoOwner
+ *    the GitHub username of the owner of the repository to be scraped
+ * @param {String} repoName
+ *    the name of the repository to be scraped
+ * @param {String?} token
+ *    optional authentication token to be used for the GitHub API (used
+ *    to get around rate limits); generate a token at:
+ *    https://github.com/settings/tokens
+ * @return {Promise<object>}
+ *    a promise that resolves to a JSON object containing the data
+ *    scraped from the repository, with the following keys and data from
+ *    the corresponding GitHub v3 endpoints:
+ *      - issues: `/repos/:owner/:repo/issues`
+ *      - pullRequests: `/repos/:owner/:repo/pulls`
+ *      - issueComments: `/repos/:owner/:repo/issues/comments`
+ *      - pullRequestComments: `/repos/:owner/:repo/pulls/comments`
+ *      - pullRequestReviews: `/repos/:owner/:repo/pulls/:pull/reviews`,
+ *        but concatenated over `:pull` so that the result is an array
+ *        of objects
+ */
+module.exports = function fetchGitHubRepo(repoOwner, repoName, token) {
+  const authOptions = token ? {type: "token", token} : null;
+  return new Fetcher(repoOwner, repoName, authOptions).fetchAll();
+};
+
+class Fetcher {
+  constructor(repoOwner, repoName, authOptions = undefined) {
+    this._repoOwner = repoOwner;
+    this._repoName = repoName;
+    this._octokit = octokitFactory(octokitFactory);
+    if (authOptions) {
+      this._octokit.authenticate(authOptions);
+    }
+  }
+
+  // Adapted from:
+  // https://www.npmjs.com/package/@octokit/rest#pagination
+  async paginate(promise) {
+    let response = await promise;
+    let {data} = response;
+    while (this._octokit.hasNextPage(response)) {
+      response = await this._octokit.getNextPage(response);
+      data = [...data, ...response.data];
+    }
+    return data;
+  }
+
+  async fetchAll() {
+    const pullRequests = await this.fetchPullRequests();
+    return {
+      issues: await this.fetchIssues(),
+      pullRequests,
+      issueComments: await this.fetchIssueComments(),
+      pullRequestComments: await this.fetchPullRequestComments(),
+      pullRequestReviews: await this.fetchPullRequestReviews(pullRequests),
+    };
+  }
+
+  fetchPullRequests() {
+    return this.paginate(
+      this._octokit.pullRequests.getAll({
+        owner: this._repoOwner,
+        repo: this._repoName,
+        state: "all",
+        per_page: 100,
+      })
+    );
+  }
+
+  fetchIssues() {
+    return this.paginate(
+      this._octokit.issues.getForRepo({
+        owner: this._repoOwner,
+        repo: this._repoName,
+        state: "all",
+        per_page: 100,
+      })
+    );
+  }
+
+  fetchPullRequestComments() {
+    return this.paginate(
+      this._octokit.pullRequests.getCommentsForRepo({
+        owner: this._repoOwner,
+        repo: this._repoName,
+        per_page: 100,
+      })
+    );
+  }
+
+  fetchIssueComments() {
+    return this.paginate(
+      this._octokit.issues.getCommentsForRepo({
+        owner: this._repoOwner,
+        repo: this._repoName,
+        per_page: 100,
+      })
+    );
+  }
+
+  fetchIndividualPullRequestReviews(number) {
+    return this.paginate(
+      this._octokit.pullRequests.getReviews({
+        owner: this._repoOwner,
+        repo: this._repoName,
+        number: number,
+        per_page: 100,
+      })
+    );
+  }
+
+  fetchPullRequestReviews(allPullRequests) {
+    const reviewses = Promise.all(
+      allPullRequests.map((pr) =>
+        this.fetchIndividualPullRequestReviews(pr.number)
+      )
+    );
+    return reviewses.then((xss) => [].concat(...xss));
+  }
+}