# Stale finder

> Items with no activity for a while, grouped by age, with quick ways to tidy them up.

A stale finder lists items in a search that have gone quiet, oldest first, with quick actions to close, label or ask about them.

## Settings

- In the picker

  **Stale finder**: Items with no activity for a while, by age, with quick ways to tidy them up.

- New size

  400 × 500

- Refreshes

  At least every 15 minutes while someone's looking

| Setting                                                              | Stored as | Accepts                                    | Default      |
| -------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------- | ------------------------------------------ | ------------ |
| Title (“Quiet for 30 days+” if empty)                                | `title`   | Text, at most 120                          | empty        |
| Forge (only shown when the board has more than one)                  | `host`    | Text, at least 1 character and at most 253 | `github.com` |
| Look through                                                         | `q`       | Text, at most 1000                         | empty        |
| Quiet for at least: 14 days, 30 days, 2 months, 3 months or 6 months | `days`    | A whole number from 1 to 730               | `30`         |
| Label to add                                                         | `label`   | Text, at most 50                           | `stale`      |
| _No control: stays at its default_                                   | `limit`   | A whole number from 5 to 100               | `50`         |

Tack adds the cutoff to the search itself (`updated:<2026-09-10` for 30 days), unless the search already says `updated:`.

## Using it

Items are grouped by how long they’ve been quiet: from the threshold to twice it, two to four times, and longer (“30 days – 2 months”, “2–4 months”, “4 months+”). Each row says how long, “quiet 52 days”.

Quick actions on each row **stage** changes, like every action: nothing changes until someone [pushes](https://tack.social/writing-back/pushing.md).

- **Close as not planned**
- **Label “stale”** (or whichever label you chose)
- **Ask if it’s still wanted**: a comment to its assignees (or its author, if nobody’s assigned): “@kai: this issue has been quiet for 52 days. Is it still something we want? If not, we’ll close it as not planned.”
- **Close all N**, for a whole group

A staged row says “Closing”, “Labelling” or “Pinging”, with a button to unstage it. The quick actions only show for people who can edit the board, and for repositories Tack can write to.

Rows drag out onto the board as cards.