GitLab CI template for Renovate

Automate your dependency updates with Renovate.

Usage

This template can be used both as a CI/CD component or using the legacy include:project syntax.

Use as a CI/CD component

Add the following to your .gitlab-ci.yml:

include:
  # include the component
  - component: $CI_SERVER_FQDN/to-be-continuous/renovate/gitlab-ci-renovate@1.4.0

Use as a CI/CD template (legacy)

Add the following to your .gitlab-ci.yml:

include:
  # include the template
  - project: "to-be-continuous/renovate"
    ref: "1.4.0"
    file: "/templates/gitlab-ci-renovate.yml"

Configuration

The Renovate template uses some global configuration used throughout all jobs.

Input / Variable	Description	Default value
image / RENOVATE_IMAGE	The Docker image used to run Renovate	registry.hub.docker.com/renovate/renovate:latest
RENOVATE_TOKEN	A GitLab access token to allow Renovate crawl your projects. See doc	none
GITHUB_COM_TOKEN	A GitHub access token to allow Renovate fetch changelogs. See doc	none

This template will help you using Renovate from a GitLab project to automate your dependency updates within your groups or projects. On the contrary to other to-be-continuous templates, this one should be used in a separate project that will be in charge of crawling all your other projects.

Upon including the template, carefuly follow Renovate's documentation to configure the bot accordingly. Pay attention to the following:

• ~~Remember to set the platform parameter to gitlab in your configuration.~~
• GitLab platform integration requires that you declare a RENOVATE_TOKEN variable with an access token.
• You'll also probaly need to declare a GITHUB_COM_TOKEN variable, holding a GitHub access token (for fetching changelogs)

Default Renovate configuration

This template is designed to be run on GitLab.

Defaults values are set to manage GitLab features :

Renovate variable	Value
RENOVATE_PLATFORM	gitlab
RENOVATE_ENDPOINT	$CI_API_V4_URL
RENOVATE_AUTODISCOVER_FILTER	${CI_PROJECT_ROOT_NAMESPACE}/**
RENOVATE_REGISTRY_ALIASES	{"$$CI_SERVER_FQDN": "$CI_SERVER_FQDN"}
RENOVATE_BINARY_SOURCE	install
RENOVATE_LOG_FILE	renovate-log.ndjson
RENOVATE_LOG_FILE_LEVEL	debug

Dry-run implementation details

Depending on the source of a pipeline, the template will either perform your dependency updates (create/update/delete branches and MRs) or perform a dry run (to preview the behavior of Renovate with logs, without making any changes to your repositories).

The real dependency updates is triggered only when:

• the pipeline is started from the web interface (menu Build > Pipelines, click Run pipeline),
• or the pipeline is started from a scheduled run (menu Build > Pipeline schedules).

In any other case (regular Git commit or else) the template will perform a dry run.

Dry-run behavior is enabled/disabled with the RENOVATE_DRY_RUN environment variable. Please don't try to override it or you might break the default template implementation.