[Jose Alvarez (jpalvarezl)]

Motivation & Context

The existing stale automation only checks pull requests carrying a manually applied label, sends a single reminder, and does not close inactive pull requests. In practice, the required label is not being applied, so the scheduled workflow scans no candidates.

This change provides a deterministic, PR-only process for warning external contributors and closing pull requests that remain inactive after a maintainer response. It intentionally avoids AI-based classification and includes maintainer-controlled exemptions and dry-run support.

Description & Review Guide

• What are the major changes?
  • Renames the stale automation to stale_pr_ping and restricts it to open pull requests.
  • Loads maintainers from the Python and .NET rules in CODEOWNERS on the repository's default branch.
  • Warns an external PR author after the configured inactivity period when the latest conversation comment is from a CODEOWNER, then applies requested-info.
  • Closes the PR after another configured inactivity period.
  • Exempts CODEOWNER-authored PRs and PRs carrying the maintainer-controlled dont-close label.
  • Preserves DAYS_THRESHOLD as a shared configuration override for the warning and closing periods.
  • Supports dry-run execution through the manual workflow input.
  • Adds focused coverage for classification, thresholds, dry-run behavior, retries, warning, closure, and exemptions. python -m pytest .github\tests\test_stale_pr_ping.py -q passes with 40 tests.
• What is the impact of these changes?
  • Scheduled runs process qualifying PRs daily; manual runs can use dry-run mode to preview warnings and closures.
  • When run live, qualifying PRs receive a fixed warning and requested-info; continued inactivity then results in a fixed closing comment and closure.
  • New commits, comments, reviews, or other PR updates reset the relevant inactivity period through GitHub's updated_at timestamp.
• What do you want reviewers to focus on?
  • The CODEOWNERS-based maintainer classification, the use of the latest conversation comment to establish that the contributor owns the next response, and the safety boundaries around dry-run mode and dont-close.

Related Issue

N/A - repository automation. Updates .github/workflows/stale-pr-ping.yml.

AI Assistance

• No material AI assistance was used.
• This is an AI-assisted contribution. I reviewed, understood, and verified all submitted content and accept responsibility for it.

AI assistance details: GitHub Copilot assisted with the design discussion, implementation, tests, and PR description.

Contribution Checklist

• The code builds clean without any errors or warnings
• All unit tests pass, and I have added new tests where possible
• The PR follows the Contribution Guidelines
• This PR links to an agreed issue with no competing open PR, or the Related Issue section documents a trivial-change or repository-automation exception.
• This is not a breaking change. If it is a breaking change, add the breaking change label (or add "[BREAKING]" to the title prefix, before or after any language prefix) — a workflow keeps the label and the title prefix in sync automatically.

[Copilot]

🟡 Changes recommended

The script can close previously labeled PRs without issuing the new closure warning or allowing its required grace period.

3 open issues

• Require warning evidence before closing previously labeled PRs · New
• Recover missing warning label without reposting the warning · New
• Materialize paginated PRs before closing entries · New

What changed in this PR

Replaces label-triggered issue and PR reminders with a deterministic lifecycle for warning and closing inactive external pull requests.

Changes:

• Uses default-branch CODEOWNERS for maintainer classification, with exemptions for maintainer-authored and dont-close PRs.
• Adds warning and closure stages with configurable inactivity thresholds, retries, and dry-run support.
• Replaces the previous tests with coverage for lifecycle eligibility, actions, exemptions, and failures.

File	Description
.github/​workflows/​stale-pr-ping.yml	Runs the new PR lifecycle script and updates input descriptions.
.github/​tests/​test_stale_pr_ping.py	Adds tests for the new lifecycle and configuration.
.github/​tests/​test_stale_issue_pr_ping.py	Removes tests for the previous reminder process.
.github/​scripts/​stale_pr_ping.py	Implements maintainer classification, warnings, and automatic closure.
.github/​scripts/​stale_issue_pr_ping.py	Removes the label-triggered issue and PR reminder script.

_{Review effort: Balanced}

[github-actions]

MAF Automated Review — Iteration 1

Result: Findings reported
Scope: full PR (7 commit(s)): ab71f8c24907, b15a77a06b12, 7c2e255cf245, cdae2eb18610, 22eff9b7dffe, bf4054c40115, 25249828df46
Model: gpt-5.6-sol

Overview

The PR replaces the label-gated issue/PR reminder with an open-PR-only two-stage lifecycle and adds useful safeguards: CODEOWNER and dont-close exemptions, dry-run support, comment-before-mutation ordering, retries, and focused tests. Four lifecycle gaps remain: the shared label can close previously labeled PRs without the new warning, contributor activity does not cancel the closing state, a partial warning cannot recover across runs, and unbounded comment enumeration lets hostile PRs repeatedly consume shared automation resources.

Reviewed the supplied pull-request change set across correctness, security/reliability, architecture, and failure behavior.
4 verified findings remained after source verification (4 medium) across 1 file. Details are attached to the affected lines below.

Affected areas: .github/scripts/stale_pr_ping.py