How to Stop Your GitHub Issues From Becoming a Graveyard

Every maintainer knows the feeling. You open your repo's issue tracker and there are 847 open issues. Half of them are from 2022. Some reference APIs that no longer exist. A few are duplicates nobody caught. And buried somewhere in that mess are the three issues that actually matter this week. Stale issues and PRs aren't just visual clutter — they actively slow down your team. New contributors can't tell what's relevant. Triaging becomes a full-time job. And that PR from eight months ago? It's n