Script to delete all issues for a repo. This is different than just closing all of them. It uses the v4 GraphQL Github API.

massdel.py

#!/usr/bin/env python
#
# by Erik Osheim
#
# STEPS TO USE
#
# 0. install deps
#    - pip install requests
#
# 1. generate personal access token
#    - log into github
#    - go to https://github.com/settings/tokens
#    - the account used must have 'admin' permission to delete issues for the repo
#    - include at least the 'public_repo' permission for the access token
#    - save the token string (something like 'd33e2d1d3fb978eafded0c9817e8bce9cca04472')
#
# 2. update user, tok, owner, and repo variables in this script
#    - user: the account that generated the token
#    - tok: the generated token string
#    - owner: the owner of the repo whose issues are to be deleted
#    - repo: the name of the repo whose issues are to be deleted
#
# 3. python massdel.py
#
# The script will delete the issues 20 at a time. It will display the
# remaining API calls available and when the calls refresh. For repos
# with many thousands of issues the script may need to be run multiple
# times (e.g. delete the first 5K issues, wait until the API calls are
# refreshed, delete the next 5K, etc.). The script doesn't do this
# backoff itself, and contains no rate limiting of any kind.
#
# FUTURE WORK
#
# * delete only issues with a matching label
# * delete only issues opened by a particular account
# * delete a set of issues given by issue number

import datetime
import json
import requests

user = 'github-username'
tok = 'abcdef0123456789abcdef0123456789abcdef01'
owner = "repo-owner"
repo = "repo-name"

# get info about how many API requests remain
def info(r0):
    remaining = int(r0.headers['X-RateLimit-Remaining'])
    limit = int(r0.headers['X-RateLimit-Limit'])
    return (remaining, limit)

# get into about when API requests are refreshed
def retryat(r0):
    t = r0.headers['X-RateLimit-Reset']
    d = datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp(int(t))
    return (d, t)

# make a graphql request to github
def req(q):
    dat = json.dumps({"query": q})
    return requests.post('https://api.github.com/graphql', auth=(user, tok), data=dat)

# request all the issues for the repo
def getissues():
    q = """
    query {
      repository(owner:"%s", name:"%s") {
        issues(last:20, states:[CLOSED,OPEN]) {
          edges {
            node { id number }
          }
        }
      }
    }
""" % (owner, repo)
    return req(q)

# delete a particular issues by its internal issue ID (not issue number)
def delete(iid):
    m = """
mutation {
  deleteIssue(input:{issueId:"%s"}) {
    clientMutationId
  }
}
""" % iid
    return req(m)

# the actual script body
def main():
    while True:
        r0 = getissues()
        if r0.status_code != 200:
            print('failed to get issues')
            print(r0.json())
            return

        rem, lim = info(r0)
        dt, _ = retryat(r0)
        print('%d of %d API calls remaining until %s' % (rem, lim, dt))

        lst = r0.json()['data']['repository']['issues']['edges']
        if not lst:
            print('no issues to delete')
            return

        print('got next %d issues' % len(lst))
        for item in lst:
            iid = item['node']['id']
            num = item['node']['number']
            r1 = delete(iid)
            if r1.status_code != 200:
                print('failed to delete #%s (%s)' % (num, iid))
                d, t = retryat(r1)
                print('retry at %s (%s)' % (d, t))
                print(r1.json())
                return None
            rem, lim = info(r1)
            print('  %04d/%04d:  deleted issue #%s (%s)' % (rem, lim, num, iid))

if __name__ == "__main__":
    # run the script!
    main()