Action is ignoring non-stale tag on issues.

[NotLazy]

Description: I've configured the stale action to not mark issues with the !stale label as stale, using exempt-issue-labels: \!stale which was working for some time when I added it 7 months ago, but for the last 3-4 months it's been ignoring the label

Action version: v5

Platform:

• Ubuntu
• macOS
• Windows
  The runner is configured to use ubuntu-latest

Runner type:

• Hosted
• Self-hosted
  Github runs the action automatically.

Repro steps: https://github.com/hainguyents13/mechvibes/blob/master/.github/workflows/stale.yml

Expected behavior: I expect the issues to not be marked as stale, as was previously working 6-7 months ago.

Actual behavior: Issues which should not be marked stale are being marked stale.

[priyagupta108]

Hello @NotLazy 👋,
Thank you for reporting this issue. We will investigate it and get back to you as soon as we have some feedback.

[galabra]

I looked for changes in the file that uses exemptIssueLabels, however didn't find anything relevant for the time span you've described.
I also tried modifying the relevant test in main.spec.ts by adding a !stale label and the test passed successfully.

Maybe it has something to do with the escaping of the exclamation mark?

[NotLazy]

Maybe it has something to do with the escaping of the exclamation mark?

Tried without escaping and I'm getting errors now.

[suyashgaonkar]

Hi @NotLazy , We tried investigating issue with the provided details and tried the given workflow. We see that the workflow run fails with Invalid workflow file error with exempt-issue-labels: !stale . Please check the workflow run :- https://github.com/setup-actions-demo/stale-test/actions/runs/12158864953 for more details

We suggest you to escape special character (!) with the help of single or double quotes in the workflow for the exempt-issue-label value, that should reolve the issue. You can refer the workflow run with the suggested solution on the following url :- https://github.com/setup-actions-demo/stale-test/actions/runs/12199078047/job/34032166470
Please also refer to screen shot below for results.

[NotLazy]

I think this fixed it, thank you.

[suyashgaonkar]

Hi @NotLazy , Thank you for confirming and we will close this ticket, feel free to re-open this ticket incase of any queries or issue.