Does GitHub delete repositories with no activity after some length of time?

Question

What is the GitHub policy on inactive repositories and are they deleted or archived after some amount of time of no activity or not?

By no activity I mean that no updates to the repository have been made nor any pulls from the repository been made nor any forks of the repository. The scenario is that the repository has essentially been forgotten for some number of years with no one doing anything with the contents nor referring to the contents.

And perhaps add the criteria that the owner has not signed in for some time.

I found a Deceased Owner Policy, which actually seems to imply that unless there is formal notification from an authorized person to GitHub about the repository, they will do nothing.

In the event that a GitHub user passes away, we can work with an authorized individual to determine what happens to the account's content.

If you are next of kin, a pre-designated successor, or other authorized individual (which could include a collaborator or business partner) of a deceased user and would like to make a request regarding their account, you can reach out to us at https://support.github.com/contact. Please provide the following information in your message:

• Name

• Contact Information

• Name of the deceased account holder

• GitHub username of the deceased account holder

• Your relationship to the deceased account holder (please include whether you have been designated as the account successor on GitHub.com)

• If designated as account successor, the username of your GitHub account

• What action you are seeking (e.g. transfer public repositories, cancel billing on account)

Once we have received your request, we may follow up with a request for additional information, such as a copy of your photo identification, copy of the death certificate, and documentation confirming you are authorized to act in relation to the deceased user’s account, to verify that we are properly authorized to process your request.

However what I want to know is whether there is a time limit of inactivity on a repository before GitHub would take some action and what that action would be.

Answer 1

I have something of an answer after posting this question into the GitHub community, What is GitHub policy about abandoned repositories?

The response I received is:

We definitely do not delete inactive repositories. I can’t predict the future but it would seem a strange policy for us to take up.

It’s certainly quite common for people to fork inactive repositories to restart the project themselves!

This is congruent with the Deceased Owner Policy. And it makes sense due to the difficulties of determining if a repository is actually abandoned or not without the explicit directive from the owner or an owner's representative that it is. In the case of the owner, the owner or a representative with the credentials can merely delete it. Should the owner no longer be available, a representative can request the deletetion using the Deceased Owner Policy process.