You can customize your Dependabot configuration to suit your needs, by adding options to your dependabot.yml
file. For example, you can make sure that Dependabot uses the correct package manifest files, and updates only the dependencies you want maintained.
This article collates customization options you may find useful.
Ignoring specific dependencies
If you are not ready to adopt changes from certain dependencies in your project, you can configure Dependabot to ignore those dependencies when it opens pull requests for version updates. You can do this using one of the following methods.
- Configure the
ignore
option for the dependency in yourdependabot.yml
file.- You can use this to ignore updates for specific dependencies, versions, and types of updates.
- For more information, see
ignore
in Dependabot options reference.
- Use
@dependabot ignore
comment commands on a Dependabot pull request for version updates.- You can use comment commands to ignore updates for specific dependencies and versions.
- For more information, see Administrar las solicitudes de extracción para las actualizaciones de dependencia.
Here are some examples showing how ignore
can be used to customize which dependencies are updated.
-
To ignore updates beyond a specific version
YAML ignore: - dependency-name: "lodash:*" # Ignore versions of Lodash that are equal to or greater than 1.0.0 versions: [ ">=1.0.0" ]
ignore: - dependency-name: "lodash:*" # Ignore versions of Lodash that are equal to or greater than 1.0.0 versions: [ ">=1.0.0" ]
YAML ignore: - dependency-name: "sphinx" versions: [ "[1.1,)" ]
ignore: - dependency-name: "sphinx" versions: [ "[1.1,)" ]
-
To ignore patch updates
YAML ignore: - dependency-name: "@types/node" # Ignore patch updates for Node update-types: ["version-update:semver-patch"]
ignore: - dependency-name: "@types/node" # Ignore patch updates for Node update-types: ["version-update:semver-patch"]
-
To ignore specific versions or version ranges, see Ignoring specific versions or ranges of versions.
If you want to un-ignore a dependency or ignore condition, you can delete the ignore conditions from the dependabot.yml
file or reopen the pull request.
Allowing specific dependencies to be updated
You can use allow
to tell Dependabot about the dependencies you want to maintain. allow
is usually used in conjunction with ignore
.
For more information, see allow
in Dependabot options reference.
By default, Dependabot creates version update pull requests only for the dependencies that are explicitly defined in a manifest (direct
dependencies). This configuration uses allow
to tell Dependabot that we want it to maintain all
types of dependency. That is, both the direct
dependencies and their dependencies (also known as indirect dependencies, sub-dependencies, or transient dependencies). In addition, the configuration tells Dependabot to ignore all dependencies with a name matching the pattern org.xwiki.*
because we have a different process for maintaining them.
Tip
Dependabot checks for all allowed dependencies, then filters out any ignored dependencies. If a dependency is matched by an allow and an ignore statement, then it is ignored.
version: 2 registries: # Helps find updates for non Maven Central dependencies maven-xwiki-public: type: maven-repository url: https://nexus.xwiki.org/nexus/content/groups/public/ username: "" password: "" # Required to resolve xwiki-common SNAPSHOT parent pom maven-xwiki-snapshots: type: maven-repository url: https://maven.xwiki.org/snapshots username: "" password: "" updates: - package-ecosystem: "maven" directory: "/" registries: - maven-xwiki-public - maven-xwiki-snapshots schedule: interval: "weekly" allow: # Allow both direct and indirect updates for all packages. - dependency-type: "all" ignore: # Ignore XWiki dependencies. We have a separate process for updating them - dependency-name: "org.xwiki.*" open-pull-requests-limit: 15
version: 2
registries:
# Helps find updates for non Maven Central dependencies
maven-xwiki-public:
type: maven-repository
url: https://nexus.xwiki.org/nexus/content/groups/public/
username: ""
password: ""
# Required to resolve xwiki-common SNAPSHOT parent pom
maven-xwiki-snapshots:
type: maven-repository
url: https://maven.xwiki.org/snapshots
username: ""
password: ""
updates:
- package-ecosystem: "maven"
directory: "/"
registries:
- maven-xwiki-public
- maven-xwiki-snapshots
schedule:
interval: "weekly"
allow:
# Allow both direct and indirect updates for all packages.
- dependency-type: "all"
ignore:
# Ignore XWiki dependencies. We have a separate process for updating them
- dependency-name: "org.xwiki.*"
open-pull-requests-limit: 15
Ignoring specific versions or ranges of versions
You can use versions
in conjunction with ignore
to ignore specific versions or ranges of versions.
For more information, see versions
in Dependabot options reference.
-
To ignore a specific version
YAML ignore: - dependency-name: "django*" # Ignore version 11 versions: [ "11" ]
ignore: - dependency-name: "django*" # Ignore version 11 versions: [ "11" ]
-
To ignore a range of versions
YAML ignore: - dependency-name: "@types/node" versions: ["15.x", "14.x", "13.x"] - dependency-name: "xdg-basedir" # 5.0.0 has breaking changes as they switch to named exports # and convert the module to ESM # We can't use it until we switch to ESM across the project versions: ["5.x"] - dependency-name: "limiter" # 2.0.0 has breaking changes # so we want to delay updating. versions: ["2.x"]
ignore: - dependency-name: "@types/node" versions: ["15.x", "14.x", "13.x"] - dependency-name: "xdg-basedir" # 5.0.0 has breaking changes as they switch to named exports # and convert the module to ESM # We can't use it until we switch to ESM across the project versions: ["5.x"] - dependency-name: "limiter" # 2.0.0 has breaking changes # so we want to delay updating. versions: ["2.x"]
Specifying the semantic versioning level to ignore
You can specify one or more semantic versioning (SemVer) levels to ignore using update-types
.
For more information, see update-types
in Dependabot options reference.
In this example, Dependabot will ignore patch versions for Node.
version: 2 updates: - package-ecosystem: "npm" directory: "/" schedule: interval: "daily" ignore: - dependency-name: "express" # For Express, ignore all updates for version 4 and 5 versions: ["4.x", "5.x"] # For Lodash, ignore all updates - dependency-name: "lodash" - dependency-name: "@types/node" # For Node types, ignore any patch versions update-types: ["version-update:semver-patch"]
version: 2
updates:
- package-ecosystem: "npm"
directory: "/"
schedule:
interval: "daily"
ignore:
- dependency-name: "express"
# For Express, ignore all updates for version 4 and 5
versions: ["4.x", "5.x"]
# For Lodash, ignore all updates
- dependency-name: "lodash"
- dependency-name: "@types/node"
# For Node types, ignore any patch versions
update-types: ["version-update:semver-patch"]
Defining a versioning strategy
By default, Dependabot tries to increase the minimum version requirement for dependencies it identifies as apps, and widens the allowed version requirements to include both the new and old versions for dependencies it identifies as libraries.
You can change this default strategy. For more information, see versioning-strategy
in Dependabot options reference.
In this example, Dependabot will increase the minimum version requirement to match the new version for both apps and libraries.
version: 2 updates: - package-ecosystem: npm directory: "/" schedule: interval: daily # Increase the minimum version for all npm dependencies versioning-strategy: increase
version: 2
updates:
- package-ecosystem: npm
directory: "/"
schedule:
interval: daily
# Increase the minimum version for all npm dependencies
versioning-strategy: increase
In this example, Dependabot will only increase the minimum version requirement if the original constraint does not allow the new version.
version: 2 updates: - package-ecosystem: pip directory: "/" schedule: interval: daily open-pull-requests-limit: 20 rebase-strategy: "disabled" # Increase the version requirements for npm # only when required versioning-strategy: increase-if-necessary
version: 2
updates:
- package-ecosystem: pip
directory: "/"
schedule:
interval: daily
open-pull-requests-limit: 20
rebase-strategy: "disabled"
# Increase the version requirements for npm
# only when required
versioning-strategy: increase-if-necessary
Updating vendored dependencies
You can instruct Dependabot to vendor specific dependencies when updating them.
Dependabot automatically maintains vendored dependencies for Go modules, and you can configure Bundler to also update vendored dependencies.
For more information, see vendor
in Dependabot options reference.
In this example, vendor
is set to true
for Bundler, which means that Dependabot will also maintain dependencies for Bundler that are stored in the vendor/cache directory in the repository.
version: 2 updates: - package-ecosystem: bundler directory: "/" # Vendoring Bundler vendor: true schedule: interval: weekly day: saturday open-pull-requests-limit: 10
version: 2
updates:
- package-ecosystem: bundler
directory: "/"
# Vendoring Bundler
vendor: true
schedule:
interval: weekly
day: saturday
open-pull-requests-limit: 10