[Feature Request] Make linked PRs on a 3rd-Party Repo able to auto-close the related Issue on a own Repo.

[Amirhan-Taipovjan-Greatest-I]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Question

Body

Hello!

I want to see the Availability of this Case:
0. Created an Issue on Own Repo and linked an PR of 3rd-Party (non-Own) Repo.

1. When Mentioned PR is closed, mentioned Issue gets closed too.

For Me it didn't work, so I'm requesting it.

[Divyansh089]

As far as I know, automatic Issue closing only works reliably when the PR and Issue are in repositories where GitHub can resolve the relationship directly.

For cross-repository cases (especially third-party repos), the closing keywords like:

Fixes #123
Closes #123

may not automatically close the Issue.

You may need to:

• manually close the Issue, or
• use a GitHub Action/workflow to monitor external PR status and close the Issue automatically.

This would definitely be useful for multi-repository workflows and external contribution tracking.

[Amirhan-Taipovjan-Greatest-I]

Yeah, I want to know how to implement a GitHub Action/Workflow on an Issue Repo to detect if External PRs are closed, and thus close an Issue that links to mentioned PRs.

[Amirhan-Taipovjan-Greatest-I]

Custom GitHub Action/Workflow does wonders!

[RAAJK20Pro]

After looking into this behavior, it seems GitHub currently treats “cross-repository referencing” and “automatic issue closure” as two separate systems internally.

When keywords such as:

Fixes #123
Closes #123
Resolves #123

are used inside the same repository, GitHub can safely associate the pull request, commit history, permissions, and issue state together.
Because of that trusted relationship, merging the PR is able to automatically transition the linked issue into a closed state.

However, the behavior appears to change when the target issue belongs to an unrelated 3rd-party repository.

In those cases, GitHub still parses the keyword correctly and creates the cross-reference successfully, but it does not perform the final automatic closure action.

So the current behavior is effectively:

• The external issue gets linked correctly
• The PR ↔ issue relationship becomes visible
• Navigation between both resources works
• But the issue state itself remains unchanged after merge

Example:

Fixes owner/repository#123

Result:

• ✅ Cross-reference created
• ✅ Mention appears on the target issue
• ✅ Relationship is visible in timeline/history
• ❌ External issue is not auto-closed

From a platform-design perspective, this is likely intentional rather than accidental.

GitHub probably restricts automatic state changes across unrelated repositories to prevent scenarios such as:

• unintended issue closures,
• abuse/spam from external repositories,
• permission boundary problems,
• or automation conflicts between independent projects and organizations.

So based on the current workflow model, what you are seeing looks like an existing platform limitation/safety restriction rather than a missing setting or syntax mistake.

Your suggestion actually makes a lot of sense for modern multi-repository development workflows, especially in cases involving:

• dependency ecosystems,
• modular projects,
• external contribution pipelines,
• forks maintained outside the parent organization,
• and projects where fixes are implemented in separate repositories.

Having optional or permission-based support for trusted external auto-closing would definitely improve cross-repository collaboration workflows.

[Amirhan-Taipovjan-Greatest-I]

Yeah, I wanted to enable Auto-Close, for Example, of My Issues on My special Issue Repo when linked external PRs are closed.

[Amirhan-Taipovjan-Greatest-I]

Thank You!

And how can I add the secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN to the Repo of Mine?
Also, which Permissions should be given to that Token?

[Amirhan-Taipovjan-Greatest-I]

Thank You!

And how can I add the secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN to the Repo of Mine? Also, which Permissions should be given to that Token?

Yeah.. looks like I still can't figure it out.
Now I understand that secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN should not be changed, but still... Workflow seems be not working as intended: Nothings happens. I have an Issue with linked external merged PR, but the mentioned Issue didn't close itself.

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