Renovate bot creating too many Merge Requests despite grouping configuration

[badrshs]

What would you like help with?

I think I found a bug

How are you running Renovate?

Self-hosted

If you're self-hosting Renovate, tell us which platform (GitHub, GitLab, etc) and which version of Renovate.

GitLab

Please tell us more about your question or problem

I'm trying to configure Renovate bot for my project, but I'm having trouble getting it to create the exact number of Merge Requests (MRs) I want. My project uses both npm for frontend dependencies and NuGet for backend dependencies.

Current Situation

With my current configuration, Renovate is creating 68 MRs, which is far more than I need. Here's a snippet of what I'm seeing:

With your current configuration, Renovate will create 80 Merge Requests:

► Pin dependencies
► Update angular monorepo angular monorepo (patch)
► Update angular-cli monorepo angular-cli monorepo (patch)
► Update aws-sdk-net monorepo aws-sdk-net monorepo (patch)
► Update backend-dependencies backend-dependencies (patch)
► Update dependency datatables.net-bs5
► Update dependency jasmine-core
► Update dependency typescript-eslint
...
[many more similar entries]
...
► Update angular monorepo angular monorepo (major)

Desired Outcome

I want to significantly reduce the number of MRs to just 5:

1. Frontend patch updates
2. Frontend minor updates
3. Frontend major updates
4. Backend patch and minor updates combined
5. Backend major updates

My Current Configuration

Here's my current Renovate configuration:

{
  "extends": ["config:recommended"],
  "packageRules": [
    {
      "matchManagers": ["npm"],
      "matchUpdateTypes": ["patch"],
      "groupName": "frontend-patch-dependencies",
      "groupSlug": "frontend-patch-updates"
    },
    {
      "matchManagers": ["npm"],
      "matchUpdateTypes": ["minor"],
      "groupName": "frontend-minor-dependencies",
      "groupSlug": "frontend-minor-updates"
    },
    {
      "matchManagers": ["npm"],
      "matchUpdateTypes": ["major"],
      "groupName": "frontend-major-dependencies",
      "groupSlug": "frontend-major-updates"
    },
    {
      "matchManagers": ["nuget"],
      "matchUpdateTypes": ["patch", "minor"],
      "groupName": "backend-patch-minor-dependencies",
      "groupSlug": "backend-patch-minor-updates"
    },
    {
      "matchManagers": ["nuget"],
      "matchUpdateTypes": ["major"],
      "groupName": "backend-major-dependencies",
      "groupSlug": "backend-major-updates"
    }
  ],
  "timezone": "UTC",
  "prHourlyLimit": 2,
  "prConcurrentLimit": 5,
  "separateMultipleMajor": false,
  "separateMinorPatch": false,
  "separateMajorMinor": false,
  "commitMessageExtra": "{{groupName}}",
  "commitBodyTable": true,
  "lockFileMaintenance": {
    "enabled": true,
    "automerge": false
  },
  "rangeStrategy": "pin",
  "prCreation": "immediate",
  "labels": ["dependencies"],
  "dependencyDashboard": true
}

I also tried

{
  "extends": ["config:recommended"],
  "packageRules": [
  {
    "groupName": "all dependencies",
    "groupSlug": "all",
    "matchPackagePatterns": [
      "*"
    ],
    "matchUpdateTypes": [
      "major",
      "minor",
      "patch"
    ]
  }
],
  "timezone": "UTC",
  "prHourlyLimit": 2,
  "prConcurrentLimit": 5,
  "separateMultipleMajor": false,
  "separateMinorPatch": false,
  "separateMajorMinor": false,
  "commitMessageExtra": "{{groupName}}",
  "commitBodyTable": true,
  "lockFileMaintenance": {
    "enabled": true,
    "automerge": false
  },
  "rangeStrategy": "pin",
  "prCreation": "immediate",
  "labels": ["dependencies"],
  "dependencyDashboard": true
}

I assumed the one above should create only 1 MR but it did

Question

How can I modify my Renovate configuration to create exactly 5 MRs as described in the "Desired Outcome" section? I've tried various grouping strategies, but I'm still getting too many individual MRs.

Any help in refining this configuration would be greatly appreciated!

[rarkins]

The monorepo preset rules coming from config:recommended are taking precedence over your own rules. Where/how are you defining your config? If it's in renovate.json then it's unexpected that preset rules would take precedence. If you're defining them in config.js then it's expected, because extends takes priority over global config.

[badrshs]

I'm was doing it from renovate.json , and I'm not using config.js at all

After long search it seems working now with the following but I don't feel it's 100% correct as I'm not using config:recommended

{
  "extends": ["mergeConfidence:all-badges"],
  "packageRules": [
    {
      "matchManagers": ["npm"],
      "matchPackagePatterns": [".*"],
      "matchUpdateTypes": [ "patch","pin", "digest", "pinDigest"],
      "groupName": "front-end-patch-dependencies",
      "groupSlug": "front-end-patch-updates"
    },
    {
      "matchManagers": ["npm"],
      "matchPackagePatterns": [".*"],
      "matchUpdateTypes": ["minor"],
      "groupName": "front-end-minor-dependencies",
      "groupSlug": "front-end-minor-updates"
    },
    {
      "matchManagers": ["npm"],
      "matchPackagePatterns": [".*"],
      "matchUpdateTypes": ["major"],
      "groupName": "front-end-major-dependencies",
      "groupSlug": "front-end-major-updates"
    },
    {
      "matchManagers": ["nuget"],
      "matchUpdateTypes": [ "patch","pin", "minor", "digest", "lockFileMaintenance", "pinDigest"],
      "groupName": "backend-minor-patch-dependencies",
      "groupSlug": "backend-minor-patch-updates"
    },
    {
      "matchManagers": ["nuget"],
      "matchUpdateTypes": ["major"],
      "enabled": true,
      "groupName": "backend-major-dependencies",
      "groupSlug": "backend-major-updates-"
    }
  ],
  "hostRules": [
    {
      "matchHost": "https://nuget.x.local/nuget/x.NuGet.Server/v3/index.json",
      "hostType": "nuget",
      "token": "{{NUGET_API_KEY}}"
    }
  ],
  "nuget": {
    "registryUrls": [
      "https://nuget.x.local/nuget/x.NuGet.Server/v3/index.json",
      "https://api.nuget.org/v3/index.json"
    ]
  },
  "timezone": "UTC",
  "ignoreSchedules": ["*"],
  "schedule": ["at any time"],
  "prHourlyLimit": 0,
  "prConcurrentLimit": 0,
  "separateMultipleMajor": false,
  "separateMinorPatch": false,
  "separateMajorMinor": false,
  "commitMessageExtra": "{{groupName}}",
  "commitBodyTable": true,
  "rangeStrategy": "pin",
  "prCreation": "immediate",
  "labels": ["dependencies"],
  "dependencyDashboard": true 
}

any suggestion or something doesn't make sense to you here ? mainly the custom nuget customization 😓

[rarkins]

Better to use packageRules with matchDatasources than the nuget {} approach