Split stale workflow handling for docs-internal and docs repositories

[Copilot]

This pull request was created as a result of the following prompt in Copilot Chat.

Original prompt - submitted by @felicitymay

This workflow update introduces separate stale handling for pull requests in the 'docs-internal' repository. In 'docs-internal', PRs are marked as stale after 14 days of inactivity, with a custom comment for the stale event and a different custom comment for the close event. In 'docs', the original behavior (365 days for both issues and PRs) is preserved. Issues in both repositories continue to use a 365-day threshold.

Changes

This PR updates the .github/workflows/stale.yml workflow to handle stale issue and PR management differently for the docs-internal and docs repositories:

For github/docs-internal:

• PRs: Marked stale after 14 days of inactivity
• Issues: Continue using 365 days threshold (unchanged)
• Custom PR stale message: "This PR has been automatically marked as stale due to 14 days of inactivity. Please update soon to avoid closure."
• Custom PR close message: "Closing this PR due to prolonged inactivity. If you wish to continue, please reopen."

For github/docs:

• PRs and Issues: Maintain original 365 days threshold
• Messages: Keep existing generic stale/close messages

Technical Implementation:

• Split the single workflow step into two separate steps with repository-specific conditions
• Added days-before-stale-pr: 14 parameter for docs-internal
• Configured custom stale-pr-message and close-pr-message for docs-internal
• Preserved all existing configuration (labels, exemptions, operations-per-run, etc.)
• Maintained existing failure handling with slack alerts

Preserved Behavior:

• Same schedule (daily at 16:20 UTC / 8:20 PST)
• Same repository scope conditions
• Same labels (stale) and exempt labels (never-stale, waiting for review, help wanted)
• Same failure handling with checkout and slack alerts
• Same action version and security hash

This change allows docs-internal to have more aggressive PR stale handling while keeping the docs repository behavior unchanged, improving workflow efficiency for internal documentation management.

This pull request was created as a result of the following prompt from Copilot chat.

This workflow update introduces separate stale handling for pull requests in the 'docs-internal' repository. In 'docs-internal', PRs are marked as stale after 14 days of inactivity, with a custom comment for the stale event and a different custom comment for the close event. In 'docs', the original behavior (365 days for both issues and PRs) is preserved. Issues in both repositories continue to use a 365-day threshold.

The following changes are made to .github/workflows/stale.yml:

• Split the stale handling into two steps, conditioned on the repository name.
• For 'github/docs-internal':
  • PRs are marked stale after 14 days (days-before-stale-pr: 14).
  • Custom message for PR stale event: 'This PR has been automatically marked as stale due to 14 days of inactivity. Please update soon to avoid closure.'
  • Custom message for PR close event: 'Closing this PR due to prolonged inactivity. If you wish to continue, please reopen.'
• For 'github/docs':
  • PRs and issues keep the original threshold (365 days).
• Issues in both repositories use the same (original) stale logic and messaging.

No changes are made to actions, labels, or exempt labels.

---

Here is the updated workflow file:

name: Stale

on:
  schedule:
    - cron: '20 16 * * *' # Run every day at 16:20 UTC / 8:20 PST

permissions:
  contents: read
  issues: write
  pull-requests: write

jobs:
  stale:
    if: github.repository == 'github/docs-internal' || github.repository == 'github/docs'
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Mark stale issues and PRs (docs-internal)
        if: github.repository == 'github/docs-internal'
        uses: actions/stale@28ca1036281a5e5922ead5184a1bbf96e5fc984e # v9.0.0
        with:
          repo-token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
          stale-issue-message: 'This issue is stale because there have been no updates in 365 days.'
          stale-pr-message: 'This PR has been automatically marked as stale due to 14 days of inactivity. Please update soon to avoid closure.'
          close-pr-message: 'Closing this PR due to prolonged inactivity. If you wish to continue, please reopen.'
          days-before-stale: 365
          days-before-close: 0
          days-before-stale-pr: 14
          stale-issue-label: 'stale'
          stale-pr-label: 'stale'
          exempt-pr-labels: 'never-stale,waiting for review'
          exempt-issue-labels: 'never-stale,help wanted,waiting for review'
          operations-per-run: 1000
          close-issue-reason: not_planned

      - name: Mark stale issues and PRs (docs)
        if: github.repository == 'github/docs'
        uses: actions/stale@28ca1036281a5e5922ead5184a1bbf96e5fc984e # v9.0.0
        with:
          repo-token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
          stale-issue-message: 'This issue is stale because there have been no updates in 365 days.'
          stale-pr-message: 'This PR is stale because there have been no updates in 365 days.'
          close-pr-message: 'This PR is being closed due to inactivity.'
          days-before-stale: 365
          days-before-close: 0
          stale-issue-label: 'stale'
          stale-pr-label: 'stale'
          exempt-pr-labels: 'never-stale,waiting for review'
          exempt-issue-labels: 'never-stale,help wanted,waiting for review'
          operations-per-run: 1000
          close-issue-reason: not_planned

      - name: Check out repo
        if: ${{ failure() }}
        uses: actions/checkout@11bd71901bbe5b1630ceea73d27597364c9af683 # v4.2.2
      - uses: ./.github/actions/slack-alert
        if: ${{ failure() }}
        with:
          slack_channel_id: ${{ secrets.DOCS_ALERTS_SLACK_CHANNEL_ID }}
          slack_token: ${{ secrets.SLACK_DOCS_BOT_TOKEN }}

No other files are affected.

---

💬 Share your feedback on Copilot coding agent for the chance to win a $200 gift card! Click here to start the survey.

[github-actions]

👋 Hey there spelunker. It looks like you've modified some files that we can't accept as contributions:

• .github/workflows/stale.yml

You'll need to revert all of the files you changed that match that list using GitHub Desktop or git checkout origin/main <file name>. Once you get those files reverted, we can continue with the review process.

The complete list of files we can't accept are:

• .devcontainer/**
• .github/**
• data/reusables/rai/**
• Dockerfile*
• src/**
• package*.json
• content/actions/how-tos/security-for-github-actions/security-hardening-your-deployments/**

We also can't accept contributions to files in the content directory with frontmatter type: rai.

[github-actions]

How to review these changes 👓

Thank you for your contribution. To review these changes, choose one of the following options:

• Spin up a codespace
• Set up a local development environment

A Hubber will need to deploy your changes internally to review.

Table of review links

Note: Please update the URL for your staging server or codespace.

This pull request contains code changes, so we will not generate a table of review links.

🤖 This comment is automatically generated.

[github-actions]

👋 Hey there spelunker. It looks like you've modified some files that we can't accept as contributions:

• .github/workflows/stale.yml

You'll need to revert all of the files you changed that match that list using GitHub Desktop or git checkout origin/main <file name>. Once you get those files reverted, we can continue with the review process.

The complete list of files we can't accept are:

• .devcontainer/**
• .github/**
• data/reusables/rai/**
• Dockerfile*
• src/**
• package*.json
• content/actions/how-tos/security-for-github-actions/security-hardening-your-deployments/**

We also can't accept contributions to files in the content directory with frontmatter type: rai.

[felicitymay]

@copilot Thanks for your work. I will commit my suggested changes and then you can go ahead and work on the remaining comments.

[felicitymay]

@copilot - please revert the deletion of this comment and instead update it to match the new behavior of the workflow.

[Copilot]

Restored the workflow comment block and updated it to reflect the new behavior. The comment now accurately describes that issues and PRs are closed after 365 days (docs) or 14 days for PRs (docs-internal). Fixed in commit 44469be.

[github-actions]

👋 Hey there spelunker. It looks like you've modified some files that we can't accept as contributions:

• .github/workflows/stale.yml

You'll need to revert all of the files you changed that match that list using GitHub Desktop or git checkout origin/main <file name>. Once you get those files reverted, we can continue with the review process.

The complete list of files we can't accept are:

• .devcontainer/**
• .github/**
• data/reusables/rai/**
• Dockerfile*
• src/**
• package*.json
• content/actions/how-tos/security-for-github-actions/security-hardening-your-deployments/**

We also can't accept contributions to files in the content directory with frontmatter type: rai.

[felicitymay]

Copilot. I just realized that you opened this PR in the wrong repository.

I'm going to close this and ask you to open a PR in the correct repository.