Repo Hygiene: Keeping Your GitHub Projects Sane

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A clean repository isn’t just a nice-to-have — it’s a force multiplier for collaboration, automation, and long-term maintainability. Whether you’re part of a solo project or managing a large team, establishing strong hygiene practices helps reduce friction, improves onboarding, and enables automation at scale.

🏷️ Branch Naming Conventions

  • feature/<short-description> — for new features
  • bugfix/<ticket-id> — for small fixes
  • hotfix/<critical-patch> — for emergency production fixes
  • chore/<task> — for infrastructure or cleanup tasks
  • release/<version> — for version bump branches

🛡️ Branch Protections & Policies

  • ✅ Require pull request reviews before merging
  • ✅ Require status checks to pass
  • ✅ Require signed commits
  • ✅ Restrict who can push directly
  • ✅ Enable “Include administrators” for consistency

🚀 Automating Cleanup with Stale Bot

daysUntilStale: 30
daysUntilClose: 7
staleIssueMessage: 'This issue is stale. Please update or it will be closed.'
exemptLabels:
  - keep

🏷️ Labeling, Milestones & Projects

  • Use consistent categories (e.g., type:bug, priority:high)
  • Apply good first issue and help wanted to encourage contributions
  • Sync labels across repos using tools like github-label-sync

🧰 PR & Issue Templates

## Summary
Brief description of the change.

## Checklist
- [ ] Tests added or updated
- [ ] Docs updated
- [ ] Ready for review

🔍 Documentation & Repo Structure

  • Clear, focused, updated README.md
  • Usage examples, setup instructions
  • docs/ folder for deeper guides
  • Archive unused folders and legacy code

✅ TL;DR: Your GitHub Repo Hygiene Checklist

  • ✅ Consistent branch naming
  • ✅ Enforced branch protections
  • ✅ Stale bot for old issues
  • ✅ Descriptive labels & milestones
  • ✅ Project boards for planning
  • ✅ PR/issue templates in place
  • ✅ Clean, documented README
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