renovate/docs/usage/faq.md

title	description
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)	Frequently Asked Questions for Renovate Configuration

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

What is the default behavior?

Renovate will:

• Look for configuration options in a configuration file (e.g. renovate.json) and in each package.json file
• Find and process all package files (e.g. package.json, composer.json, Dockerfile, etc) in each repository
• Use separate branches/PR for each dependency
• Use separate branches for each major version of each dependency
• Pin devDependencies to a single version, rather than use ranges
• Pin dependencies to a single version if it appears not to be a library
• Update yarn.lock and/or package-lock.json files if found
• Create Pull Requests immediately after branch creation

Which Renovate versions are officially supported?

The Renovate maintainers only support the latest version of Renovate. The Renovate team will only create bugfixes for an older version if the hosted app needs to stay on an older major version for a short time or if some critical bug needs to be fixed and the new major is blocked.

If you're using the hosted app, you don't need to do anything, as the Renovate maintainers update the hosted app regularly. If you're self hosting Renovate, use the latest release if possible.

Renovate core features not supported on all platforms

Feature	Platforms which lack feature	See Renovate issue(s)
Dependency Dashboard	BitBucket, BitBucket Server, Azure	#9592
Hosted app	GitLab, BitBucket, BitBucket Server, Azure, Gitea

Major platform features not supported by Renovate

Some major platform features are not supported at all by Renovate.

Feature name	Platform	See Renovate issue(s)
Jira issues	BitBucket	#3796
Merge trains	GitLab	#5573
Configurable merge strategy and message	Only BitBucket for now	#10867 #10868 #10869 #10870

What is this main branch I see in the documentation?

When you create a new repository with Git, Git creates a base branch for you. The default branch name that Git uses is master (this will be changed to main later).

The Git-hosting ecosystem has settled on using main to replace master. When you create a new repository on say GitHub or GitLab, you'll get a main branch as your base branch.

It therefore makes sense for Renovate to replace master with main where possible as well.

A branch name has no special meaning within the Git program, it's just a name. The base branch could be called trunk or mainline or prod, and Git would work just as well.

What if I need to .. ?

Troubleshoot Renovate

If you have problems with Renovate, or need to know where Renovate keeps the logging output then read our troubleshooting documentation.

Tell Renovate to ask for approval before creating a Pull Request

The default behavior is that Renovate creates a pull request right away whenever there's an update. But maybe you want Renovate to ask for your approval before it creates a pull request. Use the "Dependency Dashboard approval" workflow to get updates for certain packages - or certain types of updates - only after you give approval via the Dependency Dashboard.

The basic idea is that you create a new packageRules entry and describe what kind of package, or type of updates you want to approve beforehand.

Say you want to manually approve all major npm package manager updates:

{
  "packageRules": [
    {
      "matchUpdateTypes": ["major"],
      "matchManagers": ["npm"],
      "dependencyDashboardApproval": true
    }
  ]
}

Or say you want to manually approve all major Jest updates:

{
  "packageRules": [
    {
      "matchPackagePatterns": ["^jest"],
      "matchUpdateTypes": ["major"],
      "dependencyDashboardApproval": true
    }
  ]
}

You could even configure Renovate bot to ask for approval for all updates. The dependencyDashboardApproval is not part of a packageRules array, and so applies to all updates:

{
  "dependencyDashboardApproval": true
}

Read our documentation on the dependencyDashboardApproval config option.

Use an alternative branch as my Pull Request target

Say your repository's default branch is main but you want Renovate to use the next branch as its PR target. You can configure the PR target branch via the baseBranches option.

Add this line to the renovate.json file that's in the default branch (main in this example).

{
  "baseBranches": ["next"]
}

You can set more than one PR target branch in the baseBranches array.

Support private npm modules

See the dedicated Private npm module support page.

Control Renovate's schedule

To learn all about controlling Renovate schedule, read the key concepts, scheduling docs.

Disable Renovate for certain dependency types

Define a packageRules entry which has the dependency type(s) in matchDepTypes and "enabled": false.

Use a single branch/PR for all dependency upgrades

Add a configuration for configuration option groupName set to value "all", at the top level of your renovate.json or package.json.

Use separate branches per dependency, but not one per major release

Set configuration option separateMajorMinor to false.

Keep using SemVer ranges, instead of pinning dependencies

Set configuration option rangeStrategy to "replace".

Keep lock files (including sub-dependencies) up-to-date, even when package.json hasn't changed

By default, if you enable lock-file maintenance, Renovate will update the lockfile ["before 5am on monday"]. If you want to update the lock file more often, update the schedule field inside the lockFileMaintenance object.

Wait until tests have passed before creating the PR

Set the configuration option prCreation to "status-success". Branches with failing tests will remain in Git and continue to get updated if necessary, but no PR will be created until their tests pass.

Wait until tests have passed before creating a PR, but create the PR even if they fail

Set the configuration option prCreation to "not-pending".

Assign PRs to specific user(s)

Set the configuration option assignees to an array of usernames.

Add labels to PRs

Set the configuration option labels to an array of labels to use.

Apply a rule, but only to package abc?

1. Add a packageRules array to your configuration
2. Create one object inside this array
3. Set field matchPackageNames to value ["abc"]
4. Add the configuration option to the same object

e.g.

{
  "packageRules": [
    {
      "matchPackageNames": ["abc"],
      "assignees": ["importantreviewer"]
    }
  ]
}

Apply a rule, but only for packages starting with abc

Do the same as above, but instead of using matchPackageNames, use matchPackagePatterns and a regex:

{
  "packageRules": [
    {
      "matchPackagePatterns": "^abc",
      "assignees": ["importantreviewer"]
    }
  ]
}

Group all packages starting with abc together in one PR

As above, but apply a groupName:

{
  "packageRules": [
    {
      "matchPackagePatterns": "^abc",
      "groupName": ["abc packages"]
    }
  ]
}

Change the default values for branch name, commit message, PR title or PR description

You can use the branchName, commitMessage, prTitle or prBody configuration options to change the defaults for those settings.

Automatically merge passing Pull Requests

Set the configuration option automerge to true. Nest it inside config objects patch or minor if you want it to apply to certain types only.

Separate patch releases from minor releases

Renovate's default behavior for major/minor releases

Renovate's default behavior is to separate major and minor releases, patch releases are also considered "minor". Let's explain the default behavior with an example:

Say you are using a package snorgleborf, it's the 0.8.0 version. The snorgleborf maintainers then release the following versions:

• 0.8.1 (patch)
• 0.9.0 (minor)
• 1.0.0 (major)

Renovate would then open the following PRs:

• Update dependency snorgleborf to 0.9.0 (minor)
• Update dependency snorgleborf to 1.0.0 (major)

Note how Renovate groups the patch and minor versions together into one PR. This means you only get a PR for the minor version, 0.9.0.

You can override the default behavior. To learn more read the section below.

Overriding the default behavior for major/minor releases

You can see in the example above that Renovate won't normally open a PR for the snorgleborf patch release.

You can tell Renovate to open a separate PR for the patch release by setting separateMinorPatch to true.

In both cases, Renovate will open 3 PRs:

• Update dependency snorgleborf to 0.8.1 (patch)
• Update dependency snorgleborf to 0.9.0 (minor)
• Update dependency snorgleborf to 1.0.0 (major)

Most people don't want more PRs though. But it can still be handy to get PRs for patches when using automerge:

• Get daily patch updates which are automerged once tests pass
• Get weekly updates for minor and major updates

The end result would be that you barely notice Renovate during the week, while you still get the benefits of patch level updates.