A GitHub Actions workflow that scans all repositories in your organization once a month (or on-demand) and files an issue listing:

• Repos that are completely empty (no files at root)
• Repos that contain only a README at the root

This helps you spot neglected or placeholder repositories and take action (archive, populate, delete, etc.).

• Scheduled scan: runs at 00:00 UTC on the 1st of every month
• Manual trigger: invoke from the Actions tab or via gh workflow run
• Visibility filter: choose to scan all, public, or private repos
• Auto-issue creation: opens a new issue with a Markdown table of results
• Modular design: scanner logic separated into reusable script with comprehensive tests
• Zero dependencies: uses actions/github-script, built-in scheduling and permissions

1. Copy the workflow files from this repo:

   • .github/workflows/empty-repos.yml (main workflow)
   • scripts/empty-repos-scanner.js (scanner logic)

2. Update the organization name to scan:

   env:
     SCAN_ORG: my-org-name    # ← set this to your GitHub org

The scanner logic is separated into scripts/empty-repos-scanner.js for maintainability and testing.

1. Install dependencies:

   npm install

npm test

The test suite covers:

• Empty repository detection
• README-only repository detection
• Visibility filtering (public/private/all)
• Archived repository filtering
• Various README file name patterns
• Report generation
• GitHub issue creation

Tests run automatically on pull requests via the .github/workflows/test.yml workflow.

MIT

Looking for more resources for your open source program office (OSPO)? Check out the github-ospo repository for a variety of tools designed to support your needs.