diff --git a/.github/workflows/edit_pr_description.yml b/.github/workflows/edit_pr_description.yml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b6f9acf
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.github/workflows/edit_pr_description.yml
@@ -0,0 +1,36 @@
+name: Clean up PR description
+
+on:
+  # see https://docs.github.com/en/actions/using-workflows/events-that-trigger-workflows#pull_request_target
+  pull_request_target:
+    types:
+      - opened
+      - synchronize
+      - reopened
+      - edited
+  workflow_call:
+# see https://docs.github.com/en/actions/using-jobs/assigning-permissions-to-jobs
+permissions:
+  pull-requests: write
+
+jobs:
+  check_labels:
+    name: Remove html comments
+    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
+    steps:
+      - uses: actions/checkout@11bd71901bbe5b1630ceea73d27597364c9af683 # v4.2.2
+        with:
+          repository: napari/napari
+      # install python and requests
+      - name: Install the latest version of uv
+        uses: astral-sh/setup-uv@v6
+        with:
+          version: "latest"
+      - name: Remove html comments
+        env:
+          GH_PR_NUMBER: ${{ github.event.number }}
+          GH_REPO_URL: ${{ github.event.repository.url}}
+          GH_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
+
+        run: |
+          uv run --script scripts/remove_html_comments_from_pr.py
diff --git a/.github/workflows/remove_ready_to_merge.yml b/.github/workflows/remove_ready_to_merge.yml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3ff553e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.github/workflows/remove_ready_to_merge.yml
@@ -0,0 +1,42 @@
+name: Remove "ready to merge" label
+
+on:
+  workflow_call:
+permissions:
+  pull-requests: write
+
+jobs:
+  remove_label:
+    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
+    steps:
+      - name: Remove label
+        uses: actions/github-script@60a0d83039c74a4aee543508d2ffcb1c3799cdea # v7.0.1
+        with:
+          github-token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
+          script: |
+            const { data: issues } = await github.rest.issues.listForRepo({
+              ...context.repo,
+              state: 'closed',
+              per_page: 100,
+              sort: 'updated',
+              direction: 'desc',
+              labels: 'ready to merge',
+            });
+            if (issues.length > 0) {
+              console.log('Found the following closed items with the "ready to merge" label:');
+              for (const issue of issues) {
+                console.log(`- #${issue.number}: ${issue.title}`);
+                try {
+                  await github.rest.issues.removeLabel({
+                    ...context.repo,
+                    issue_number: issue.number,
+                    name: 'ready to merge'
+                  });
+                  console.log(`  > Removed 'ready to merge' label from #${issue.number}`);
+                } catch (error) {
+                  console.error(`  > Failed to remove label from #${issue.number}: ${error.message}`);
+                }
+              }
+            } else {
+              console.log('No closed items found with the "ready to merge" label.');
+            }
diff --git a/scripts/remove_html_comments_from_pr.py b/scripts/remove_html_comments_from_pr.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b32e40a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/scripts/remove_html_comments_from_pr.py
@@ -0,0 +1,97 @@
+
+# /// script
+# dependencies = [
+#   "requests"
+# ]
+# requires-python = ">=3.11"
+# ///
+"""
+Edit pull request description to remove HTML comments
+
+We might want to remove section with markdown task lists that are completely empty
+"""
+
+import re
+import sys
+from os import environ
+
+import requests
+
+REPO = 'napari/napari'
+
+
+def remove_html_comments(text):
+    # Regular expression to remove HTML comments
+    # [^\S\r\n] is whitespace but not new line
+    html_comment_pattern = r'[^\S\r\n]*<!--(.*?)-->[^\S\r\n]*\s*'
+    return re.sub(html_comment_pattern, '\n', text, flags=re.DOTALL)
+
+
+def edit_pull_request_description(repo, pull_request_number, access_token):
+    # GitHub API base URL
+    base_url = 'https://api.github.com'
+
+    # Prepare the headers with the access token
+    headers = {'Authorization': f'token {access_token}'}
+
+    # Get the current pull request description
+    pr_url = f'{base_url}/repos/{repo}/pulls/{pull_request_number}'
+    response = requests.get(pr_url, headers=headers)
+    response.raise_for_status()
+    response_json = response.json()
+    current_description = response_json['body']
+
+    # Remove HTML comments from the description
+    edited_description = remove_html_comments(current_description)
+
+    if edited_description == current_description:
+        print('No HTML comments found in the pull request description')
+        return
+
+    # Update the pull request description
+    update_pr_url = f'{base_url}/repos/{repo}/pulls/{pull_request_number}'
+    payload = {'body': edited_description}
+    response = requests.patch(update_pr_url, json=payload, headers=headers)
+    response.raise_for_status()
+
+    if response.status_code == 200:
+        print(
+            f'Pull request #{pull_request_number} description has been updated successfully!'
+        )
+    else:
+        print(
+            f'Failed to update pull request description. Status code: {response.status_code}'
+        )
+
+
+if __name__ == '__main__':
+    print('Will inspect PR description to remove html comments.')
+
+    # note that the env between pull_request and pull_request_target are different
+    # and the github documentation is incorrect (or at least misleading)
+    # and likely varies between pull request intra-repository and inter-repository
+    # thus we log many things to try to understand what is going on in case of failure.
+    # among other:
+    # - github.event.repository.name is not the full slug, but just the name
+    # - github.event.repository.org is empty if the repo is a normal user.
+
+    repository_url = environ.get('GH_REPO_URL')
+    print(f'Current repository is {repository_url}')
+    repository_parts = repository_url.split('/')[-2:]
+
+    slug = '/'.join(repository_parts)
+    print(f'Current slug is {slug}')
+    if slug != REPO:
+        print('Not on main repo, aborting with success')
+        sys.exit(0)
+
+    # get current PR number from github actions
+    number = environ.get('GH_PR_NUMBER')
+    print(f'Current PR number is {number}')
+
+    access_token = environ.get('GH_TOKEN')
+    if access_token is None:
+        print('No access token found in the environment variables')
+        # we still don't want fail status
+        sys.exit(0)
+    edit_pull_request_description(slug, number, access_token)