Automating issue assignment

[Parship12]

I wanted to get feedback on using GitHub automation to manage issue assigning. The idea is to allow only one assignee per issue, automatically remove extra assignees if more than one is added, and unassign issues after a short inactivity window (for example 7 days) so issues don’t get blocked. There are clear pros and cons, so I’d like to hear thoughts on whether this makes sense for the repo and if it should apply to all issues or only specific labels.

[Parship12]

cc: @yurishkuro @jkowall

[jkowall]

Assigning issues usually just lets them sit while people don't work on them. I am not a huge fan of assigning issues to folks. If someone asks, I will normally do it.

[yurishkuro]

I'd be ok with assigning issues provided that:

1. Users can self-assign via /assign comment
2. There is a robust rate limiting (similar to PR quota) that will not assign more than 2 issues per person
3. We have robust automation to un-assign them on inactivity. We can have the bot post a reminder / ping (e.g. after 5 days) to the assignee to ask them if they are still working on it, and un-assign after not seeing response (in another 2 days). "Activity" must account for activity not just on the issue but also on a PR from the assignee linked to the issue.

[Parship12]

Pros:

1. will reduce duplicated works by contributors
2. Scales better for maintainers: automation will reduce manual follow-ups by maintainers
3. contributor-friendly if well designed

Cons:

1. will be hard to implement (correctly detecting inactivity, linked PRs and valid progress)
2. applying this to all issues could be counterproductive. Some labels may nedd different rules