Renovate Bot

Renovate automatically opens PRs in the Vish/homelab Gitea repo when Docker image tags in compose files are outdated. This keeps images from drifting too far behind upstream.

How It Works

Gitea Actions runs renovate/renovate on a weekly schedule (Mondays 06:00 UTC)
Renovate scans all docker-compose*.yaml / .yml files in the repo
For each pinned image tag (e.g. influxdb:2.2), it checks Docker Hub for newer versions
Opens a PR with the updated tag and changelog link
PRs are not auto-merged — requires manual review

Files

File	Purpose
`renovate.json`	Renovate configuration
`.gitea/workflows/renovate.yml`	Gitea Actions workflow

Configuration (`renovate.json`)

{
  "extends": ["config:base"],
  "ignorePaths": ["archive/**"],
  "packageRules": [
    {
      "matchManagers": ["docker-compose"],
      "automerge": false,
      "labels": ["renovate", "dependencies"]
    }
  ]
}

archive/** is excluded — archived stacks shouldn't generate noise
All PRs get renovate and dependencies labels
automerge: false — always review before applying

Gitea Secret

RENOVATE_TOKEN is set in Vish/homelab → Settings → Actions → Secrets. The PAT must have at minimum: repo read/write and issues write permissions (to open PRs).

Triggering Manually

From Gitea: Actions → Renovate → Run workflow

Or via API:

curl -X POST "https://git.vish.gg/api/v1/repos/Vish/homelab/actions/workflows/renovate.yml/dispatches" \
  -H "Authorization: token <your-pat>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"ref":"main"}'

What Renovate Updates

Renovate's docker-compose manager detects image tags in:

image: nginx:1.25 → tracks nginx versions
image: influxdb:2.2 → tracks influxdb 2.x
image: ghcr.io/analogj/scrutiny:master-web → tracks by SHA digest (floating tags)

Floating tags like latest or master-* are tracked by digest — Renovate opens a PR when the digest changes, even if the tag doesn't change.

Troubleshooting

Workflow fails: "docker: not found" → The python runner must have Docker available. Check the runner's environment.

No PRs opened despite outdated images → Check LOG_LEVEL=debug output in the Actions run. Common causes:

Image uses a floating tag with no semver (Renovate may skip it)
ignorePaths too broad
Gitea API permissions insufficient for the PAT

PRs pile up → Merge or close stale ones. Add ignoreDeps entries to renovate.json for images you intentionally pin:

{
  "ignoreDeps": ["favonia/cloudflare-ddns"]
}

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