Feature: action that limits amount of open pull requests by the same author

[SMillerDev]

As shortly discussed at the AGM, it would be good to have a limit on the amount of pull requests someone can have open in a repository at one time to ensure that one contributor does not overwhelm maintainer availability.

Suggestion: max 10 PRs per user per repository, with an optional override with a label for maintainers. The goal should after all be to merge PRs more than to just have them open.

[dawidd6]

Should the PRs opened over limit be closed by BrewTestBot with a comment explaining why or something else?

[SMillerDev]

I'm not sure about that, maybe we can start by just commenting. Either way it should be obvious to the author that they should open less PRs.

[MikeMcQuaid]

I gently disagree with this. This is a human problem that should be solved with human means i.e. asking the person to do so and blocking their ability to create more PRs if they do not comply.

[SMillerDev]

Well, asking them as a user will generally be way too late. One alternative I'm considering is printing a warning in brew bump if you already have a certain amount of PRs open, asking you to consider the maintainer burden. How do you feel about that option?

[MikeMcQuaid]

One alternative I'm considering is printing a warning in brew bump if you already have a certain amount of PRs open, asking you to consider the maintainer burden. How do you feel about that option?

That seems better. I'd consider instead of a warning: it's a hard error instead with no workaround.

How much is this a problem with new contributors vs. existing contributors vs. maintainers?

[SMillerDev]

It seems the case is people who got very excited after their first merged PR and now decided to update all software they can find. We don't want to stop them from contributing, but asking them to pace themselves seems like a good idea.

I'd consider instead of a warning: it's a hard error instead with no workaround.

I'd say it should be the same as an audit failure. Blocking, but you can force it to continue.

[MikeMcQuaid]

@SMillerDev Ok, that seems fair for now at least.

[AshwaqAzan]

Would be nice to have it

[iMichka]

Hi wrote a bunch of code to treat a similar problem here to showcase what is possible: Homebrew/homebrew-core#162592

We could do the same for multiple PR's being opened (which is still an issue). (I initially thought @SMillerDev issue was from 2024, but I see we already discussed this issue in 2023).

There seem to be a disagreement on the strategy:

• Strategy 1: A human (maintainer) should talk to the users opening too many pull requests
• Strategy 2: A bot / code should do it instead of a human
• Strategy 2a: it needs to happen in bump-formula
• Strategy 2b: it needs to happen as a comment on Github / the PR should get closed automatically

I am in favour of using a bot; it removes the burden from the maintainers and contributors can't really argue with bots. I think that adding a comment on GitHub like I did in Homebrew/homebrew-core#162592 is also more pedagogic so I would favour 2b.

[MikeMcQuaid]

Thanks for spelling out the options @iMichka!

• Strategy 2a: it needs to happen in bump-formula

This is the next part I think we should work on. I'm game to do so but would actively encourage others to try to beat me to it.

• Strategy 1: A human (maintainer) should talk to the users opening too many pull requests

This has been tried and doesn't seem to work 😭

• Strategy 2: A bot / code should do it instead of a human
• Strategy 2b: it needs to happen as a comment on Github / the PR should get closed automatically

If 2a doesn't work: I think doing this as well would make sense.

[p-linnane]

contributors can't really argue with bots

[p-linnane]

One alternative I'm considering is printing a warning in brew bump if you already have a certain amount of PRs open, asking you to consider the maintainer burden.

This makes the most sense to me. If we can fail on the 11th open PR and print the message that would be great. I'm trying to think of a scenario where a maintainer would need to legitimately brew bump 10+ PR's at once, and failing to.

It seems the case is people who got very excited after their first merged PR and now decided to update all software they can find. We don't want to stop them from contributing, but asking them to pace themselves seems like a good idea.

This was me when I started contributing. It was very fun and easy because of the bump tooling. @SMillerDev asked me to slow down in Homebrew/homebrew-cask#129134 because I was opening a ton of PR's at once. It irritated me quite a lot because I felt I was helping out, and considered no longer contributing. This is because I didn't understand how few maintainers there were and the work required of them. We also didn't have autobump then. If we can print a message explaining why we are asking users to slow down I think it would go a long way. Something to the effect of "Thanks for contributing, you currently have 10 open PR's, and you need to wait for some to be merged or closed before you open more. If you are performing simple version bumps, we have a bot that helps with that. Please take a look at Homebrew/homebrew-core#139929 and see if you can help fix any of these items." Give them another avenue to contribute through fixes. Something to that effect.