Node: Using GitHub Lock App for closed issues/PRs on NodeJS core?

[trivikr]

Hi,

This suggestion came from Twitter discussion started by @bcoe (link)

GitHub App lock locks closed issues and pull requests after a period of inactivity.
How about using this App on NodeJS core repo?

The only concern I see is comments related to backporting in Pull Requests.
The PR is still open to comments from collaborators so it shouldn't be a concern. And in a rare case, a collaborator can always unlock the PR if comments/response is required from a non-collaborator.

Regards,
Trivikram

[devsnek]

has there been a problem with comments in closed issues that shouldn't be in those closed issues? if so this sounds ok.

[gireeshpunathil]

• there were several cases where substantial project contributions occurred that came through collaborations in closed PRs / issues.
• inhibiting write permissions on artifacts by default can make our project look less open

[joyeecheung]

I don't think locking a closed issue after a period of inactivity is particularly useful? Closing an issue after a period of inactivity on the other hand, is more useful.

[mhdawson]

Unless there has been a problem that would be fixed by locking after some period of time, I'd favor leaving as is.

[bnoordhuis]

I'd be in favor of auto-closing old issues. We have a long (_loooong_) backlog of probably-stale issues that no one is looking at, with many where discussion has meandered so much that no one is really sure anymore what they're even about.

[manniL]

There are 3 options in the end:

1. Don't close stale issues and don't lock them
2. Close stale issues but don't lock them
3. Close stale issues and lock them

IMO, option 2 is a fair trade-off and still allows conversations but prunes the backlog.

(Just my 2 cents ☺️)

[sam-github]

1. is interesting, close but don't lock, but I think we'd want to do it based on activity, not time of opening. The literally oldest issues by open date actually have some activity, some of them are long-term tracking issues. Its more in the middle (not oldest, not most recent) where there seem to be some issues that could be dropped if there is no activity.

[manniL]

@sam-github This can be done with the suggested bot, (example: 2 months w/o activities). Then you can "announce" the close and give another grace period so the user can bump the issue again (if still relevant).

Example here: https://github.com/nuxt/nuxt.js/issues/3948#issuecomment-443190573

[sam-github]

@manniL That last seems really helpful to me. I think a few people have been basically doing this manually, @trott and @bnoordhuis leap to mind, and it must be pretty tedious. Automating the nudge and closing out the issue if no one responds seems really useful.

Is the locking which was done in the example you linked required, or can it just be closed?

[manniL]

@sam-github lock and stale are two different bots, so no, you can use only stale and don't lock up issues at all :relaxed: You can also prevent issues with a certain label from becoming stale.

Our config for the stale bot can be found here :relaxed:

[targos]

This issue is now stale 😄 What should we do?

[trivikr]

After going through the comments, looks like the support has primarily been for stale bot and not lock bot. I've created a new issue at #28798, and closing this one.

Thank you @targos for doing the work of stale bot for this issue 😄