fix(ci): persist Hacktoberfest tracker via a PR (protected-branch push was silently failing) (TheAlgorithms#15231)

* fix(ci): open a PR to persist Hacktoberfest tracker instead of pushing to protected master

* ci: use bundled gh CLI instead of peter-evans/create-pull-request

Per @cclauss / zizmor 'superfluous actions' audit, persist the rolling
tracker PR with the gh CLI rather than a third-party action.

* fix(ci): make tracker refresh degrade gracefully when rate limited

The dry run was failing because a run can exhaust the GITHUB_TOKEN's
1000/hour-per-repo budget (shared across concurrent runs) — chiefly the
awaiting-reviews directory scan. A single exhausted request then raised
and killed the whole job.

- _request now honours Retry-After (secondary limits) and, once retries
  are exhausted, raises BestEffortError instead of a bare RuntimeError.
- Row resolution, the directory scan, and the search counts catch
  BestEffortError and degrade (keep the row / mark the stat unavailable)
  instead of failing. Only the post-Oct-1 retirement exits non-zero.
- Trim the directory scan to 120 PRs and CONCURRENCY to 5 to stay well
  under the shared budget in the first place.

Author: priya-sundaram-dev

.github/workflows/hacktoberfest_prep.yml

@@ -20,6 +20,7 @@ on:
 
 permissions:
   contents: write
+  pull-requests: write
 
 jobs:
   hacktoberfest-prep:
@@ -57,13 +58,42 @@ jobs:
           if git diff --quiet -- docs/hacktober_2026_prep.md; then
             echo "No changes to docs/hacktober_2026_prep.md."
           fi
-      - name: Commit any changes
+      # `master` is a protected branch: direct pushes are rejected with
+      # `GH006: Protected branch update failed ... Changes must be made through
+      # a pull request`. So instead of committing straight to master, persist
+      # the refreshed tracker on a single rolling branch and open — or, since
+      # re-pushing the branch updates the existing PR in place, leave open — one
+      # pull request. Uses the bundled `gh` CLI rather than a third-party
+      # action (see zizmor's "superfluous actions" audit).
+      - name: Open or update the tracker pull request
         if: github.event_name != 'push' && github.event_name != 'pull_request'
+        env:
+          GH_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
+          BRANCH: chore/hacktoberfest-2026-prep-refresh
         run: |
+          set -euo pipefail
+          if git diff --quiet -- docs/hacktober_2026_prep.md; then
+            echo "No changes to docs/hacktober_2026_prep.md; nothing to persist."
+            exit 0
+          fi
           git config --global user.name "$GITHUB_ACTOR"
           git config --global user.email "$GITHUB_ACTOR@users.noreply.github.com"
+          git switch -c "$BRANCH"
           git add docs/hacktober_2026_prep.md
-          git commit -m "chore: refresh Hacktoberfest 2026 prep tracker" || echo "No changes to commit"
-          git push || echo "Nothing to push"
+          git commit -m "chore: refresh Hacktoberfest 2026 prep tracker"
+          # Force-push so the rolling branch always carries just the latest
+          # snapshot on top of master; this also updates any open PR in place.
+          git push --force origin "$BRANCH"
+          if [ -z "$(gh pr list --head "$BRANCH" --state open --json number --jq '.[].number')" ]; then
+            gh pr create \
+              --base master \
+              --head "$BRANCH" \
+              --title "chore: refresh Hacktoberfest 2026 prep tracker" \
+              --body "Automated daily refresh of the Hacktoberfest 2026 open-PR cleanup tracker (\`docs/hacktober_2026_prep.md\`): ticks off any tracked pull request that has since been merged/closed and rewrites the **Automated statistics** section.
+
+          This PR is updated in place by the \`hacktoberfest_prep\` workflow, so it always reflects the latest scheduled run. Merge it whenever you want to capture the current snapshot."
+          else
+            echo "Open tracker PR already exists; force-push updated it in place."
+          fi
       - name: Propagate the script's exit code
         run: exit ${{ steps.update.outputs.exit_code }}

scripts/hacktoberfest_prep_update.py

@@ -43,10 +43,14 @@
 AWAITING_LABEL = "awaiting reviews"
 HACKTOBERFEST_START = dt.date(2026, 10, 1)
 
-# How many API requests to keep in flight at once. GitHub's authenticated
-# primary limit is 5000/hour, but bursts of concurrent requests can trip the
-# secondary limits, so keep this modest.
-CONCURRENCY = 8
+# How many API requests to keep in flight at once. A user token's primary
+# limit is 5000/hour, but the ``GITHUB_TOKEN`` the runner hands us is capped at
+# 1000/hour *per repository* and shared across every concurrent workflow run, so
+# several dry runs in the same hour can exhaust it between them. Bursts of
+# concurrent requests can also trip the secondary limits. Keep this modest and
+# let the callers degrade gracefully when a request can't be satisfied (see
+# ``BestEffortError``) rather than failing the whole job.
+CONCURRENCY = 5
 
 # A tracked row looks like: ``12. [ ] #15144 awaiting reviews``
 ROW_RE = re.compile(
@@ -55,6 +59,16 @@
 STATS_HEADER = "## Automated statistics"
 
 
+class BestEffortError(RuntimeError):
+    """A row/statistic could not be fetched (e.g. rate limited).
+
+    Raised by :func:`_request` once every retry is exhausted. The refresh is
+    best-effort: callers catch this so an unreachable API degrades the tracker
+    (keep the old value / omit a stat) instead of failing the whole job. The
+    only intentional non-zero exit is the post-Oct-1 retirement.
+    """
+
+
 def _log(message: str) -> None:
     """Emit a progress line to stderr, flushed so Actions shows it live."""
     print(message, file=sys.stderr, flush=True)
@@ -86,19 +100,32 @@ async def _request(
             resp = await client.get(url, params=params)
             if resp.is_success:
                 return resp.json(), dict(resp.headers)
-            remaining = resp.headers.get("X-RateLimit-Remaining")
-            if resp.status_code in (403, 429) and remaining == "0":
-                reset = int(resp.headers.get("X-RateLimit-Reset", "0"))
-                wait = max(1, reset - int(time.time())) + 1
-                _log(f"Rate limited on {url}; sleeping {min(wait, 90)}s")
-                await asyncio.sleep(min(wait, 90))
-                continue
+            # Both primary ("remaining == 0") and secondary/abuse rate limits
+            # come back as 403/429. Primary limits advertise a reset epoch;
+            # secondary limits instead send a ``Retry-After`` (seconds) and may
+            # still report a non-zero remaining, so honour either signal.
+            if resp.status_code in (403, 429):
+                remaining = resp.headers.get("X-RateLimit-Remaining")
+                retry_after = resp.headers.get("Retry-After")
+                if retry_after is not None:
+                    wait = int(retry_after) + 1
+                elif remaining == "0":
+                    reset = int(resp.headers.get("X-RateLimit-Reset", "0"))
+                    wait = max(1, reset - int(time.time())) + 1
+                else:
+                    wait = 0
+                if wait and attempt < 3:
+                    _log(f"Rate limited on {url}; sleeping {min(wait, 90)}s")
+                    await asyncio.sleep(min(wait, 90))
+                    continue
             if resp.status_code >= 500 and attempt < 3:
                 await asyncio.sleep(2 * (attempt + 1))
                 continue
             resp.raise_for_status()
-        msg = f"giving up on {url}"
-        raise RuntimeError(msg)
+        # Exhausted every retry (typically the shared per-repo budget ran dry).
+        # Signal the callers to degrade rather than crash the whole run.
+        msg = f"giving up on {url} after repeated rate limiting"
+        raise BestEffortError(msg)
 
 
 async def _search_count(
@@ -135,7 +162,7 @@ async def top_awaiting_directories(
     client: httpx2.AsyncClient,
     sem: asyncio.Semaphore,
     limit: int = 3,
-    max_prs: int = 400,
+    max_prs: int = 120,
 ) -> list[tuple[str, int]]:
     """Count open ``awaiting reviews`` PRs by the top-level directory they touch."""
     query = f'repo:{REPO} is:pr is:open label:"{AWAITING_LABEL}"'
@@ -176,12 +203,22 @@ async def dirs_for(number: int) -> set[str]:
             _log(f"  ...scanned {done}/{total} PR(s)")
         return dirs
 
-    results = await asyncio.gather(*(dirs_for(n) for n in numbers))
+    results = await asyncio.gather(
+        *(dirs_for(n) for n in numbers), return_exceptions=True
+    )
 
     counts: dict[str, int] = {}
+    skipped = 0
     for dirs in results:
+        if isinstance(dirs, BestEffortError):
+            skipped += 1
+            continue
+        if isinstance(dirs, BaseException):
+            raise dirs
         for directory in dirs:
             counts[directory] = counts.get(directory, 0) + 1
+    if skipped:
+        _log(f"  ...{skipped} PR(s) skipped (API unavailable); ranking partial.")
     ranked = sorted(counts.items(), key=lambda kv: (-kv[1], kv[0]))
     return ranked[:limit]
 
@@ -199,12 +236,23 @@ async def refresh_checkboxes(
     ]
     if pending:
         _log(f"Checking {len(pending)} open tracker row(s) for resolution...")
-    states = dict(
-        zip(
-            pending,
-            await asyncio.gather(*(pr_state(client, sem, n) for n in pending)),
-        )
+    # ``return_exceptions`` keeps one rate-limited row from cancelling the rest:
+    # a row we couldn't resolve is simply left unchanged (treated as ``None``).
+    resolved = await asyncio.gather(
+        *(pr_state(client, sem, n) for n in pending), return_exceptions=True
     )
+    states: dict[int, str | None] = {}
+    unresolved = 0
+    for number, result in zip(pending, resolved):
+        if isinstance(result, BestEffortError):
+            unresolved += 1
+            states[number] = None
+        elif isinstance(result, BaseException):
+            raise result
+        else:
+            states[number] = result
+    if unresolved:
+        _log(f"  ...{unresolved} row(s) left unchanged (API unavailable).")
 
     updated = 0
     out: list[str] = []
@@ -225,13 +273,23 @@ async def refresh_checkboxes(
 async def build_stats_block(client: httpx2.AsyncClient, sem: asyncio.Semaphore) -> str:
     _log("Collecting open issue/PR counts...")
     awaiting_query = f'repo:{REPO} is:pr is:open label:"{AWAITING_LABEL}"'
+
+    async def _count_or_none(query: str) -> int | None:
+        try:
+            return await _search_count(client, sem, query)
+        except BestEffortError:
+            return None
+
     open_issues, open_prs, awaiting = await asyncio.gather(
-        _search_count(client, sem, f"repo:{REPO} is:issue is:open"),
-        _search_count(client, sem, f"repo:{REPO} is:pr is:open"),
-        _search_count(client, sem, awaiting_query),
+        _count_or_none(f"repo:{REPO} is:issue is:open"),
+        _count_or_none(f"repo:{REPO} is:pr is:open"),
+        _count_or_none(awaiting_query),
     )
     today = dt.datetime.now(dt.UTC).date().isoformat()
 
+    def _fmt(value: int | None) -> str:
+        return str(value) if value is not None else "unavailable (rate limited)"
+
     lines = [
         STATS_HEADER,
         "",
@@ -240,22 +298,30 @@ async def build_stats_block(client: httpx2.AsyncClient, sem: asyncio.Semaphore)
             f"`scripts/hacktoberfest_prep_update.py` on {today} (UTC)._"
         ),
         "",
-        f"- **Open issues:** {open_issues}",
-        f"- **Open pull requests:** {open_prs}",
-        f"- **Open PRs labelled `{AWAITING_LABEL}`:** {awaiting}",
+        f"- **Open issues:** {_fmt(open_issues)}",
+        f"- **Open pull requests:** {_fmt(open_prs)}",
+        f"- **Open PRs labelled `{AWAITING_LABEL}`:** {_fmt(awaiting)}",
         "",
         (
             "**Top three directories to work on** (most open pull requests "
             f"labelled `{AWAITING_LABEL}`):"
         ),
         "",
     ]
-    if top_dirs := await top_awaiting_directories(client, sem):
-        for rank, (directory, count) in enumerate(top_dirs, start=1):
-            plural = "PR" if count == 1 else "PRs"
-            lines.append(f"{rank}. `{directory}/` — {count} awaiting-reviews {plural}")
+    try:
+        top_dirs = await top_awaiting_directories(client, sem)
+    except BestEffortError:
+        top_dirs = []
+        lines.append("_Directory ranking unavailable this run (rate limited)._")
     else:
-        lines.append("_No open `awaiting reviews` pull requests found._")
+        if top_dirs:
+            for rank, (directory, count) in enumerate(top_dirs, start=1):
+                plural = "PR" if count == 1 else "PRs"
+                lines.append(
+                    f"{rank}. `{directory}/` — {count} awaiting-reviews {plural}"
+                )
+        else:
+            lines.append("_No open `awaiting reviews` pull requests found._")
     lines.append("")
     return "\n".join(lines)