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🔒 Sub-Issue Closer

For an overview of all available workflows, see the main README.

The Sub-Issue Closer workflow automatically closes parent issues when all of their sub-issues have been completed, keeping your issue tracker clean and organized.

Installation

# Install the 'gh aw' extension
gh extension install github/gh-aw

# Add the workflow to your repository
gh aw add-wizard githubnext/agentics/sub-issue-closer

This walks you through adding the workflow to your repository.

You can start a run of this workflow immediately by running:

gh aw run sub-issue-closer

What It Does

The Sub-Issue Closer workflow runs daily and:

  1. Scans Open Parent Issues - Finds all open issues that have sub-issues (tracked issues)
  2. Checks Completion - Verifies whether all sub-issues are in a closed state
  3. Closes Completed Parents - Closes parent issues where every sub-issue is done
  4. Recurses Up the Tree - If closing a parent reveals its own parent is now complete, that parent is closed too
  5. Adds Explanatory Comments - Posts a comment on each closed issue explaining the automatic closure

How It Works

graph LR
    A[Find Open Parent Issues] --> B[Check Sub-Issue Status]
    B --> C{All Sub-Issues Closed?}
    C -->|Yes| D[Close Parent Issue]
    D --> E[Add Closure Comment]
    E --> F{Parent Has Its Own Parent?}
    F -->|Yes| B
    F -->|No| G[Done]
    C -->|No| H[Skip - Keep Open]
Loading

Recursive Closure

The workflow processes issue trees bottom-up. If you have a hierarchy like:

Epic #1: "Launch v2.0"
  ├── Feature #2: "User auth" (all sub-issues closed)
  │     ├── #3: "Login page" [CLOSED]
  │     └── #4: "Logout" [CLOSED]
  └── Feature #5: "Dashboard" (sub-issue still open)
        └── #6: "Chart widget" [OPEN]

The workflow would close Feature #2 (all sub-issues done), then check if Epic #1 can be closed too (it cannot, because Feature #5 is still open).

What It Reads from GitHub

  • Open issues and their sub-issue relationships
  • Sub-issue states (open/closed)

What It Creates

  • Closes parent issues via the update-issue safe output
  • Adds closure comments via the add-comment safe output

When It Runs

  • Daily (automatic fuzzy scheduling)
  • Manually via workflow_dispatch

Permissions Required

  • contents: read - To read repository contents
  • issues: read - To query issue and sub-issue status

Configuration

The workflow works out of the box for any repository using GitHub's sub-issues feature. You can edit it to customize:

  • Maximum issues closed per run (default: 20)
  • The closure comment message
  • Whether to process recursively up the tree

After editing, run gh aw compile to apply your changes.

Benefits

  1. Automatic housekeeping - Issue trackers stay clean without manual intervention
  2. Works recursively - Cascades up through multi-level issue hierarchies
  3. Transparent - Always explains why an issue was closed with a comment
  4. Conservative - Only closes when 100% of sub-issues are done; skips on any doubt
  5. Complements event-driven workflows - Catches cases that may have been missed by real-time triggers

Example Output

When the workflow closes a parent issue, it posts a comment like:

🎉 Automatically closed by Sub-Issue Closer

All sub-issues have been completed. This parent issue is now closed automatically.

Sub-issues status: 4/4 closed (100%)

Source

This workflow is adapted from Peli's Agent Factory. Read more: Meet the Workflows: Organization