Repository Maintenance Cleanup

Intermediate10 min

Clean up stale branches, close abandoned PRs, and maintain a healthy repository using GitHub CLI automation.

Prerequisites

-GitHub CLI (gh) installed and authenticated

Steps

List stale PRs with no recent activity

Find pull requests that have not been updated recently.

$ gh pr list --state open --json number,title,updatedAt --jq '.[] | select(.updatedAt < (now - 2592000 | todate)) | "#\(.number) \(.title) (updated: \(.updatedAt))"'

2592000 seconds is 30 days. Adjust the number for different staleness thresholds.

Close stale PRs with a comment

Close abandoned PRs with a polite explanation.

$ gh pr close 42 --comment 'Closing due to inactivity. Feel free to reopen if you want to continue this work.'

Delete merged remote branches

Remove remote branches that have already been merged.

$ gh api repos/{owner}/{repo}/branches --paginate --jq '.[].name' | while read branch; do gh api repos/{owner}/{repo}/pulls --jq ".[] | select(.head.ref==\"$branch\" and .merged_at!=null) | .head.ref" 2>/dev/null; done | sort -u

Enable 'Automatically delete head branches' in repository settings for future PRs.

View repository statistics

Get an overview of repository activity and health.

$ gh repo view --json name,stargazerCount,forkCount,openIssues,pullRequests --jq '{name, stars: .stargazerCount, forks: .forkCount}'

Full Script

full-script.sh

#!/bin/bash
# Repository Maintenance Cleanup
set -euo pipefail

echo "=== Repository Overview ==="
gh repo view --json name,stargazerCount,forkCount --jq '"Stars: \(.stargazerCount) | Forks: \(.forkCount)"'

echo ""
echo "=== Open PRs ==="
gh pr list --state open --limit 10

echo ""
echo "=== Open Issues ==="
gh issue list --state open --limit 10

echo ""
echo "=== Maintenance Commands ==="
echo "Close stale PR:     gh pr close <number> --comment 'reason'"
echo "Close stale issue:  gh issue close <number> --comment 'reason'"
echo "Delete branch:      git push origin --delete <branch>"
echo "Archive repo:       gh repo archive"

FAQ

Discussion

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#!/bin/bash # Repository Maintenance Cleanup set -euo pipefail echo "=== Repository Overview ===" gh repo view --json name,stargazerCount,forkCount --jq '"Stars: \(.stargazerCount) | Forks: \(.forkCount)"' echo "" echo "=== Open PRs ===" gh pr list --state open --limit 10 echo "" echo "=== Open Issues ===" gh issue list --state open --limit 10 echo "" echo "=== Maintenance Commands ===" echo "Close stale PR: gh pr close <number> --comment 'reason'" echo "Close stale issue: gh issue close <number> --comment 'reason'" echo "Delete branch: git push origin --delete <branch>" echo "Archive repo: gh repo archive"