ci: 33 repositories schedule a sync-labels workflow that no longer exists

[ss-o]

Problem

33 repositories schedule a weekly workflow that calls a reusable workflow which does not exist.

Each carries .github/workflows/sync-labels.yml containing:

on:
  schedule:
    - cron: "22 2 * * 2"
jobs:
  labels:
    uses: z-shell/.github/.github/workflows/sync-labels.yml@main

z-shell/.github/.github/workflows/sync-labels.yml returns 404. It is not on main and is not in the workflow directory.

Two independent reasons to remove these

1. They are broken. Any repository whose scheduled run is still active fails weekly against a missing callee. The sampled caller (z-shell/fzy) shows state=disabled_inactivity, so GitHub has auto-disabled some after 60 days of repository inactivity — which masks the breakage rather than fixing it. Repositories that see activity will start failing again.
2. sync-labels.yml is an explicitly deprecated pattern. The workspace AGENTS.md "Deprecated patterns — never add these" table lists it by name, with the remedy "Remove; apply labels via API script". scripts/labels-sync.rb in this repository is that API script.

Affected repositories (33)

• z-shell/any-gem
• z-shell/any-node
• z-shell/apr
• z-shell/asciidoctor
• z-shell/brew-completions
• z-shell/dircolors-material
• z-shell/doctoc
• z-shell/ecs-cli
• z-shell/firefox-dev
• z-shell/fzy
• z-shell/H-S-MW
• z-shell/ls_colors
• z-shell/pyenv
• z-shell/remark
• z-shell/subversion
• z-shell/system-completions
• z-shell/z-a-bin-gem-node
• z-shell/z-a-default-ice
• z-shell/z-a-patch-dl
• z-shell/z-a-readurl
• z-shell/z-a-rust
• z-shell/z-a-submods
• z-shell/z-a-test
• z-shell/z-a-unscope
• z-shell/zbrowse
• z-shell/zconvey
• z-shell/zi-rbenv
• z-shell/zsh-bin
• z-shell/zsh-cmd-architect
• z-shell/zsh-editing-workbench
• z-shell/zsh-unique-id
• z-shell/ztrace
• z-shell/zzcomplete

How this was found

A consumer audit for #461 swept every label-related file path across all 86 active, non-fork, non-archived repositories using the trees and contents API. These callers turned up in that sweep. They do not read lib/labels.yml — they never reached the label file at all — so they did not block #461.

Suggested fix

Delete .github/workflows/sync-labels.yml from each of the 33 repositories. Nothing replaces it: label rollout is handled by scripts/labels-sync.rb, run deliberately rather than on a schedule.

Worth batching, and worth confirming per repository that the file contains only this caller job before removing it — the sweep matched paths, not full contents.

Related

• Two labels.yml files have drifted; docs cite the stale one #461 — the audit that surfaced this
• chore(labels): run the legacy label cleanup across the organization #467 — the org-wide label cleanup run

[ss-o]

Read-only 33-repository label-sync preflight

Live GET-only review completed on 2026-07-27.

• The live issue list, master-plan list, and Batch A-D union reconcile at 33 unique repositories.
• All 33 default-branch caller files exist and parse as a single reusable caller with no repository-specific steps, conditions, matrices, environments, permissions, local commands, or additional jobs.
• All 33 caller paths currently have Actions state disabled_inactivity.
• All 11 open pull requests across the set had their changed-file lists inspected; none removes or modifies .github/workflows/sync-labels.yml.
• Classification: 32 mechanical-delete-ready, 1 target-live, 0 in every other class.

The 32 callers using z-shell/.github/.github/workflows/sync-labels.yml@main still target a missing file. z-shell/zsh-editing-workbench is the exception: it uses @v1.0.8, and that exact reusable target resolves and declares workflow_call. It should be reviewed separately rather than included under the missing-target rationale.

Ready batches:

• Batch A (10): any-gem, any-node, apr, asciidoctor, brew-completions, dircolors-material, doctoc, ecs-cli, firefox-dev, fzy.
• Batch B (6): H-S-MW, ls_colors, pyenv, remark, subversion, system-completions.
• Batch C (8): z-a-bin-gem-node, z-a-default-ice, z-a-patch-dl, z-a-readurl, z-a-rust, z-a-submods, z-a-test, z-a-unscope.
• Batch D ready (8): zbrowse, zconvey, zi-rbenv, zsh-bin, zsh-cmd-architect, zsh-unique-id, ztrace, zzcomplete.
• Batch D separate decision (1): zsh-editing-workbench (target-live).

Next gate: review this preflight. If implementation is then authorized, use one branch, one deletion commit, and one pull request per ready repository, in batch order. Decide the target-live exception separately.

No file deletion, repository branch, commit, pull request, workflow run, tracker comment, or settings mutation occurred during this preflight.