ER: Modify "Update Label Directory" workflow to recover from accidental deletion

[t-will-gillis]

Emergent Requirement - Problem

Whenever a label is deleted (accidentally or not) from the repo, the label gets removed from all issues that previously had that label. Creating a new label with the same name does not recover those issues- this information is lost. We need a mechanism to either re-apply labels when they are deleted from the repo, and/or notify us that this has happened.

On Jan 20th, a dev deleted the 2 weeks inactive label. The label was removed from over 20 issues. When the "Schedule Friday" automation ran 5 days later, it appears that the bot created a replacement label. However, the replacement is unique and does not equate to the original label.

Issue you discovered this emergent requirement in

• Skills Issue: Developer: Angkitha Anguraj #7837

Date discovered

2/3/25

Did you have to do something temporarily

• YES
• NO

Who was involved

@t-will-gillis

What happens if this is not addressed

In this case, 24 issues were un-labeled without us knowing. This will break / cause an error in the label automations when those are active.

Resources

Recommended Action Items

• Make a new issue
• Discuss with team
• Let a Team Lead know

Potential solutions [draft]

• IMPORTANT: need to sync the "NEW-2 weeks inactive" label key with "2 weeks inactive" previous/deleted key
• As can be seen from the screenshot, after the label is deleted the bot removes it from each issue- and this activity is being captured by the existing automations. Therefore we should be able to use the existing automations to:
  • list each issue that is unlabeled due to the deletion
  • generate an issue that informs us that the label has been deleted
  • (optionally) automatically regenerate the label- or at least ask if we would like to do that
  • (optionally) automatically re-apply the label to the listed issues

Workflow logs showing initiating action, label deletion, and label removal ('unlabeled')

[t-will-gillis]

• duplicate of ER: Augment "Update Label Directory" workflow for accidental deletions  #7769 (!!!)