Keep scheduled workflows alive

[Copilot]

GitHub disables scheduled workflows after 60 days of repository inactivity. This workflow prevents deactivation.

Implementation

• Monthly cron check (1st of month) - must run within 60 days or workflow disables itself
• Checks last commit date on default branch
• If inactive >30 days: creates/updates draft PR with empty commits on persistent keep-alive-workflow branch
• If active: no-op

Why empty commits

Empty commits generate activity without modifying repository content. The draft PR is reopened/closed to register activity.

# Runs monthly, must execute within 60 days
schedule:
  - cron: "0 0 1 * *"

Fully automated. No human intervention required.

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[TimHess]

@copilot I didn't realize opening and closing a PR would be a viable solution here - can it be the same PR (or issue) that's closed/open/modified? If we could edit or open/close the same PR it would be even less of a hassle. Also, this process doesn't appear to require human intervention, so we can run it every 59 days and forget about the buffer window

[Copilot]

@copilot I didn't realize opening and closing a PR would be a viable solution here - can it be the same PR (or issue) that's closed/open/modified? If we could edit or open/close the same PR it would b...

Yes, great suggestions! I've updated the workflow to:

1. Reuse the same PR: Uses a persistent branch (keep-alive-workflow) and the same PR that gets reopened/closed each time. Much cleaner than creating new PRs.

2. Run every ~59 days: Changed from monthly to cron: "0 0 1 */2 *" (every 2 months = ~59-62 days). Since this requires no human intervention, we don't need the extra buffer.

The workflow now:

• Creates one persistent branch and PR on first run
• Every ~59 days: reopens the PR (if closed) then immediately closes it with a timestamp comment
• Zero noise after initial setup

Commit: cfa441d

[bart-vmware]

This and the PR_BODY below don't indicate that an empty commit is being pushed.

[bart-vmware]

According to here, status checks won't run on a PR created by a schedule to prevent infinite recursion. So I wonder whether this actually helps.

[TimHess]

I don't think we need the status checks to run on the keep-alive PR though, since we're just trying to keep github from deactivating the other scheduled job.

[bart-vmware]

Is the PR created in Draft mode? If not, it should.