aws / aws/aws-cdk

(meta): Review stale pull request closure policy

Open
#33,335 6 comments 0 reactions 1 assignee Claimed by @TheRealAmazonKendra View on GitHub
@aws-cdk/aws-iam bug p2
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Description

### Describe the bug

I have authored two PRs for AWS CDK, #31844 and #31771; both of which have been closed for being stale. On the first PR, I received a comment with:
```
This PR has been in the MERGE CONFLICTS state for 3 weeks, and looks abandoned. To keep this PR from being closed, please continue work on it. If not, it will automatically be closed in a week.
```

I then merged in main, but it was still closed three weeks later. Comments are also locked automatically so I cannot raise any problems on the PRs themselves.

What is the benefit of this stale PR policy, especially when these PRs haven't had a single review yet so the author can't make any further changes anyway? I understand that the CDK team is busy, so may not get around to reviewing these PRs, but people have spent time on contributing code which presumably works and their PRs are just being closed for being "stale"? Surely the project is losing valuable contributions and discouraging others from contributing in the future with this policy?

I understand that there may be a benefit for this stale policy where a review has been conducted and the PR hasn't been worked on for a long time, but if a review hasn't been conducted then what work is expected to be conducted on a working but otherwise months old PR?

There's some PRs which are repeatedly closed again by the bot after having been reopened by a maintainer, such as #32404. It does seem like we're losing valuable contributions here and being too bitey to new contributors.

### Regression Issue

- [ ] Select this option if this issue appears to be a regression.

### Last Known Working CDK Version

_No response_

### Expected Behavior

The stale pull request policy is removed, or is at least paused when there hasn't been a review yet.

### Current Behavior

Stale pull requests are closed and comments are locked automatically.

### Reproduction Steps

N/A

### Possible Solution

_No response_

### Additional Information/Context

_No response_

### CDK CLI Version

N/A

### Framework Version

_No response_

### Node.js Version

N/A

### OS

N/A

### Language

TypeScript

### Language Version

_No response_

### Other information

_No response_

Contributor guide

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Assessment

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