I would like to better improve our GitHub issue tracker by adding some of the Probot apps that can be installed to GitHub.
There are many available apps and I wanted to start off with a selected few that would help mitigate some of the tedious tasks. The apps I would like to bring up in this discussion and to vote on are: - Stale - Request Info - Lock Threads - No Response The "*Stale*" app is used to automatically close issues and prs which have no activity over a period of time. This app provides a lot of configuration flexibility. We can warn users after x number of days that the issue/pr has become stale and append a stale label. After x number of days being stale, then the app will close the issue/pr. We can ensure that the issues and prs are not closed immediately and provide users ample time to reply back. The "*Request Info*" app is used to automatically alert users when they have created a new issue or pr that does not have any description. The app will inform them that they will need to provide information for use to be able to help them. One of the great things about this app is that it can also check against our templates. If a user has submitted an issue or pr with only the default template, it will also fail the check. The "*No Response*" app is used to automatically close issues that have not received a response from the author. This app pairs nicely with the "request-info" app which manages the warning and label pinning. This app, on the other hand, does not support PRs as the "request-info" also supports. This means we will need to manually manage PRs in the meantime while we wait for the app to be updated. The "*Lock Threads*" app is used to lock the threads of closed issues or prs after (x) number of days of inactivity. This is to help prevent long-lived issues and prs after being resolved and closed. If a user still has issues to report after the thread of an issue or PR is locked, they should create a new issue. The locking of the thread does not occur immediately after an issue or PR is closed. Users can still have an opportunity to communicate if they feel the issue was closed prematurely. Here is an example of PR to configure and use the bots. Obviously, I would also need to enable the bot on each repo. Please let me know what is your thoughts on this and even make a vote on it. I would like to move forward and start using the power of the apps that can be installed. Here is the general process based on the configurations in the PR. *For proper Issues & PRs* - After 2 months of no activity, the issue/pr will become stale and the thread will be warned. A "stale" label is appended. - After 2 weeks of being stale, and continues to have no activity, the issue/pr is closed. - After 2 weeks of being closed, and continues to have no activity, the issue/pr thread will become locked. In total, this process covers ~3 months. (88 days exactly). After being flagged stale, users have still enough time to create an activity to prevent the app from closing and locking the thread. Additionally, I have also declared labels of "security" and "pinned" to be ignored by the app so it will never go stale. *For issues & PRs that have no description or matches the template.* - Shortly after the submission of a bad issue or pr, the app will post a warning that information must be provided. Also, "info-needed" label is applied - After 4 days of no response, the bot will close the issue. (PR will need to be manually managed for now) - After 2 weeks of being closed, and continues to have no activity, the issue/pr thread will become locked. In total, this process covers ~18 days. The author of the ticket will have enough time to correct the issue before the app closes and locks the thread. If we have enough votes for this, what I will do is merge in the PR and then do a mass deploy to all repos. I will also enable the bots to each repo. Please provide a vote on this as well.
