[BUG] [workflow] No email warning when "stale" label is applied
Preflight Checklist
- [x] I have searched existing issues and this hasn't been reported yet
- [x] This is a single bug report (please file separate reports for different bugs)
- [x] I am using the latest version of Claude Code
What's Wrong?
On other issue trackers, I recall getting an email warning when a "stale" label was added to an open issue. On this issue tracker, that is not the case; the only notification you get is when the "stale" issue is closed a week later, meaning effectively that you get no warning at all before your issue is summarily closed.
Personally, I have started to sprinkle my issues with junk comments to prevent them from being closed as stale, which is obviously noisy and counter-productive in the grand scheme of things, but really one of the few available defenses until this problem is fixed.
What Should Happen?
I should receive a notification by email when a bot adds the "stale" label to an issue.
Error Messages/Logs
(None. That's the problem here.)Steps to Reproduce
- Create an issue in this issue tracker
- Time passes. Imagine that somebody from Anthropic is looking at your issue, or more cynically, at least hope that it's not going to be closed for no good reason.
- Disappointment. At long last, you now receive _two_ email messages; one stating "Closing for now — inactive for too long. Please open a new issue if this is still relevant." and another one with the message "This issue has been automatically locked since it was closed and has not had any activity for 7 days. If you're experiencing a similar issue, please file a new issue and reference this one if it's relevant."
Not all my issues are being summarily closed and I'm not entirely sure what exactly is the difference between the ones which are and the ones which aren't.
Claude Model
Sonnet (default)
Is this a regression?
Yes, this worked in a previous version
Last Working Version
(Don't know, autumn 2025?)
Claude Code Version
2.1.50 (Claude Code)
Platform
Anthropic API
Operating System
macOS
Terminal/Shell
Terminal.app (macOS)
Additional Information
Recent issues of mine where the stale label was recently added without any notification:
- https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/27899
- https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/37790
This exacerbates the problem reported in https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/30407 - if you got a warning before the issue is closed, you could follow up with more information or at least a confirmation that the problem is still reproducible.
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9 Comments
Adding a noise comment to prevent this from being closed.
Adding a noise comment to prevent this from being closed.
Adding a noise comment to prevent this from being closed.
I believe the github bot stale comments, which resulted in the emails sent to the issue subscribers were disabled by https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/pull/26360.
I still see new stable labels being applied; the way I understand the referenced issue is that it merely fixed the bot so that it now correctly removes the stale label if somebody comments on a ticket after it received the label.
Yes, the https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/pull/26360 change seems not directly responsible for the missing stale comment, but I recall the stale comments stopped appearing around that time (mid-February 2026).
Instead, as far as I'm trying to read what happened, it was https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/pull/25352/files#diff-9546db7c1b90986bf486d07656f6b4715e271c23b6db22caf988ee382ec12f4fL29 that removed on Feb 12 the GitHub workflow responsible for posting the stale comment
The problem with missing stale comments was noticed, and a attempted fix merged on Feb 14 https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/pull/25665. The fix is ineffective in the sense that stale comments are not posted by the newly introduced "Issue Lifecycle Comment" workflow. The question is why, maybe due to the labels added by the "Issue Sweep" workflow being created using
secrets.GITHUB_TOKENin https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/pull/26360/files#diff-08f97dd5f1cc48bd22171049b2f7d68f3a962a1c7d349385d5898e81f339d24aR31so they are failing to trigger the "Issue Lifecycle Comment" workflow?This kind of skipping behavior is described in https://docs.github.com/en/actions/concepts/security/github_token#when-github_token-triggers-workflow-runs.
If we take as an example a recently closed issue that had a stale label added https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/54436#event-25633993551, we can see that the "stale" label was added by the "Issue Sweep" workflow https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/actions/runs/26004353648/job/76433120281 run on "May 18, 12:19 AM GMT+2". However, there is no "Issue Lifecycle Comment" workflow corresponding to that issue triggered around that time https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/actions?page=6&query=created%3A%3C2026-05-18. There are suprisingly few "Issue Lifecycle Comment" workflows runs following the "Issue Sweep" runs.
<img width="1603" height="905" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/f5a41783-1016-46ce-8608-4aa0137a805c" />
Adding a noise comment to prevent this from being closed.
Adding a noise comment to prevent this from being closed.
Adding a noise comment to prevent this from being closed.