ci: auto-close tracked issues when a tracking issue is closed

[thedotmack]

What

Adds .github/workflows/close-tracked-issues.yml. When an issue labeled tracking is closed, the workflow reads the issue numbers under that issue's ### Issues section and closes each one, leaving a comment pointing back to the tracker.

This makes the 19 consolidated tracking issues (#2958–#2976) actually behave like trackers: close the master → its duplicate reports close automatically.

Why

GitHub's Closes #N keyword only auto-closes on merged PRs/commits, never when an issue is closed. So issue-to-issue consolidation needs this glue.

Behavior

• Triggers on issues: closed, guarded to issues carrying the tracking label.
• Parses only the ### Issues block — PRs under ### PRs are intentionally left untouched (those get merged, not closed).
• Skips anything already closed or that resolves to a PR; one bad reference won't abort the rest.
• Closes children as completed with a back-reference comment.
• Includes a workflow_dispatch input for on-demand fan-out close (useful for testing without closing the tracker).

Verification

Ran the extraction regex against the live body of tracker #2959 — it returned exactly the 4 tracked issues (2950, 2896, 2907, 2897) and correctly excluded the 2 related PRs (2536, 2920).

Note: GitHub runs issues-triggered workflows from the file on the default branch, so this only takes effect once merged to main.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

[greptile-apps]

Greptile Summary

Adds .github/workflows/close-tracked-issues.yml to automatically close all child issues listed under a tracking issue's ### Issues section when the tracker itself is closed. The workflow handles both the automatic issues: closed trigger and a workflow_dispatch path for manual re-runs on already-closed trackers.

• Trigger & guard: Fires on issues: closed (requires the tracking label) or workflow_dispatch (accepts any issue number but refuses to fan-out if the tracker is still open, preventing accidental bulk-closes).
• Parsing: Extracts only the ### Issues block using a regex that terminates on any heading level H2–H6+ (#{2,}), leaving the ### PRs block untouched.
• Fan-out loop: Skips PRs and already-closed issues, posts a back-reference comment, closes each child as completed, and isolates errors per item so one bad reference doesn't abort the rest.

Confidence Score: 5/5

Safe to merge — a single new workflow file that writes only to issues in the same repo, with narrow permissions and clear guard rails on every code path.

The workflow's two previously flagged concerns — the workflow_dispatch open-tracker guard and the heading-level regex — are both addressed in this version. The issues: write / contents: read permission scope is appropriately minimal, the GITHUB_TOKEN never leaves the workflow, and each child-close is wrapped in a try/catch so a single bad reference cannot abort the rest of the fan-out. No logic paths were found that would cause unintended bulk-closes or data loss.

No files require special attention.

Important Files Changed

Filename	Overview
.github/workflows/close-tracked-issues.yml	New workflow that auto-closes child issues when a tracking-labeled issue is closed; includes workflow_dispatch for manual re-runs, a guard that refuses to fan-out while the tracker is still open, PR-skipping logic, idempotent already-closed checks, and per-item error isolation.

Sequence Diagram

%%{init: {'theme': 'neutral'}}%%
sequenceDiagram
    participant GH as GitHub
    participant WF as Workflow Runner
    participant API as GitHub REST API

    alt issues: closed trigger
        GH->>WF: issue closed event (tracking label required)
        WF->>WF: "tracker = event.issue payload"
    else workflow_dispatch
        GH->>WF: manual dispatch (issue_number input)
        WF->>API: "GET /issues/{issue_number}"
        API-->>WF: tracker data
        WF->>WF: "guard: tracker.state !== 'closed'? exit"
    end

    WF->>WF: "parse ### Issues section (regex)"
    WF->>WF: "extract #NNN references, dedupe, filter self"

    loop for each tracked issue number
        WF->>API: "GET /issues/{n}"
        API-->>WF: target data
        alt is PR
            WF->>WF: skip
        else already closed
            WF->>WF: skip
        else open issue
            WF->>API: "POST /issues/{n}/comments (back-reference)"
            WF->>API: "PATCH /issues/{n} state=closed, reason=completed"
            API-->>WF: success / error (caught, continues)
        end
    end

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%%{init: {'theme': 'base', 'themeVariables': {"darkMode": true, "background": "#0d1117", "primaryColor": "#21262d", "primaryTextColor": "#e6edf3", "primaryBorderColor": "#8b949e", "lineColor": "#8b949e", "textColor": "#e6edf3", "edgeLabelBackground": "#161b22", "actorBkg": "#21262d", "actorBorder": "#8b949e", "actorTextColor": "#e6edf3", "actorLineColor": "#8b949e", "signalColor": "#8b949e", "signalTextColor": "#e6edf3", "noteBkgColor": "#373320", "noteBorderColor": "#d4a72c", "noteTextColor": "#f0e6c0", "labelBoxBkgColor": "#21262d", "labelBoxBorderColor": "#8b949e", "labelTextColor": "#e6edf3", "loopTextColor": "#e6edf3", "activationBkgColor": "#30363d", "activationBorderColor": "#8b949e"}}}%%
sequenceDiagram
    participant GH as GitHub
    participant WF as Workflow Runner
    participant API as GitHub REST API

    alt issues: closed trigger
        GH->>WF: issue closed event (tracking label required)
        WF->>WF: "tracker = event.issue payload"
    else workflow_dispatch
        GH->>WF: manual dispatch (issue_number input)
        WF->>API: "GET /issues/{issue_number}"
        API-->>WF: tracker data
        WF->>WF: "guard: tracker.state !== 'closed'? exit"
    end

    WF->>WF: "parse ### Issues section (regex)"
    WF->>WF: "extract #NNN references, dedupe, filter self"

    loop for each tracked issue number
        WF->>API: "GET /issues/{n}"
        API-->>WF: target data
        alt is PR
            WF->>WF: skip
        else already closed
            WF->>WF: skip
        else open issue
            WF->>API: "POST /issues/{n}/comments (back-reference)"
            WF->>API: "PATCH /issues/{n} state=closed, reason=completed"
            API-->>WF: success / error (caught, continues)
        end
    end

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