diff --git a/src/components/contributors.astro b/src/components/contributors.astro
index 9fb0a012..6bbecff3 100644
--- a/src/components/contributors.astro
+++ b/src/components/contributors.astro
@@ -5,10 +5,10 @@ interface Props {
 }
 const { repo, file } = Astro.props;
 
-// Build an API URL that gets the 100 most recent commits for the specified file.
+// Build an API URL that gets the 100 most recent commits for the overall repo.
 // See https://docs.github.com/en/rest/commits/commits?apiVersion=2022-11-28#list-commits
 const url = new URL(`https://api.github.com/repos/${repo}/commits`);
-url.searchParams.set('per_page', 1000);
+url.searchParams.set('per_page', 100);
 
 // Fetch commits from the GitHub API
 const commits = await fetch(url, {
@@ -19,7 +19,11 @@ const commits = await fetch(url, {
 }).then((res) => res.json());
 
 function removeDuplicates(commits) {
-  if (!commits) return [];
+  if (!Array.isArray(commits)) {
+    throw new Error(
+      `GitHub API did not return a commits array. Check the repo name, authentication, and rate limits.\nAPI response: ${JSON.stringify(commits)}`
+    );
+  }
   const map = new Map();
   for (const commit of commits) {
     const author = commit.author;