diff --git a/.github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE/config.yml b/.github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE/config.yml
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..b246286c8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE/config.yml
@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+blank_issues_enabled: false
+contact_links:
+  - name: 💬 General Question
+    url: https://github.com/smithy-lang/smithy-kotlin/discussions/new/choose
+    about: Please ask and answer questions as a discussion thread
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/.github/workflows/stale_issue.yaml b/.github/workflows/stale_issue.yaml
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..c6f1cb933
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.github/workflows/stale_issue.yaml
@@ -0,0 +1,55 @@
+name: "Close stale issues"
+
+# Controls when the action will run.
+on:
+  schedule:
+  - cron: "0 0/3 * * *"
+
+jobs:
+  cleanup:
+    name: Stale issue job
+    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
+    steps:
+    - uses: aws-actions/stale-issue-cleanup@v4
+      with:
+        # Setting messages to an empty string will cause the automation to skip
+        # that category
+        ancient-issue-message: This is a very old issue that is probably not getting as much
+          attention as it deserves. We encourage you to check if this is still an issue in
+          the latest release and if you find that this is still a problem, please feel free
+          to provide a comment or open a new issue.
+        stale-issue-message: It looks like this issue has not been active for more than 5 days.
+          In the absence of more information, we will be closing this issue soon. If you find
+          that this is still a problem, please add a comment to prevent automatic closure, or
+          if the issue is already closed please feel free to reopen it.
+        stale-pr-message: It looks like this PR has not been active for more than five days. In
+          the absence of more information, we will be closing this PR soon. Please add a
+          comment to prevent automatic closure, or if the PR is already closed please feel
+          free to open a new one.
+
+        # These labels are required
+        stale-issue-label: closing-soon
+        exempt-issue-labels: no-auto-closure,feature-request
+        stale-pr-label: closing-soon
+        exempt-pr-labels: pr/needs-review
+        response-requested-label: response-requested
+
+        # Don't set closed-for-staleness label to skip closing very old issues
+        # regardless of label
+        closed-for-staleness-label: closed-for-staleness
+
+        # Issue timing
+        days-before-stale: 10
+        days-before-close: 4
+        days-before-ancient: 365
+
+        # If you don't want to mark a issue as being ancient based on a
+        # threshold of "upvotes", you can set this here. An "upvote" is
+        # the total number of +1, heart, hooray, and rocket reactions
+        # on an issue.
+        minimum-upvotes-to-exempt: 1
+
+        repo-token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
+        loglevel: DEBUG
+        # Set dry-run to true to not perform label or close actions.
+        #dry-run: true
\ No newline at end of file