Renovate: feat: Auto merge PRs when review required.

[ryansmith94]

What would you like Renovate to be able to do?
Currently it's quite frustrating when automerge is enabled, but Renovate makes pull requests because a review is required.

Describe the solution you'd like
Would it be possible to approve the pull request automatically in this scenario and automatically merge the pull request?

Describe alternatives you've considered
We considered making a webhook that checked the title of pull requests for non-major dependency updates from Renovate, then approved the PR and merged it automatically using a bot account.

[rarkins]

If you install https://github.com/apps/renovate-approve then it will hopefully do what you want. It should approve all Renovate PRs, although Renovate itself will of course only automerge those you've configured for it.

Screenshot:

Note: I'm pretty sure it will only pick up on new PRs so you won't see any existing ones get auto-approved after you install.

[rarkins]

By the way GitHub doesn't allow users/apps to approve their own PRs. That's why it needs to be a separate app.

[ryansmith94]

Hey Rhys, hope you're well. Totally understand it needing to be a separate app/user. Am I right in assuming that this will approve all PRs (including major changes to dependencies) and not just patch and minor changes to dependencies?

[rarkins]

Yes, it will approve all/any Renovate PRs, including major. It has no "awareness" of Renovate concepts and just looks if the author of the PR is renovate[bot]. This won't cause Renovate to automerge major though unless you have configured it to do that - Renovate still uses its own logic to decide on automerging.

[ryansmith94]

Ahhhhhh yes good point, I forgot the renovate[bot] would actually merge the PR, thanks Rhys! Will close this.

[ryansmith94]

Hi @rarkins, seems to work to some extent, any idea how I solve the issue with the renovate-approve app not being an acceptable review here https://github.com/xAPI-vle/moodle-logstore_xapi/pull/236?

[rarkins]

I forgot that GitHub added the requirement “with write access” after I first wrote that bot. I’ll update its permissions later today to request read/write access although it will still just do nothing but auto approve.

[ryansmith94]

That's perfect thank you! 👍

[rarkins]

Done

[ryansmith94]

Awesome thanks Rhys!

[itajaja]

so, if I have automerge, but not renovate-approve, will it wait for my approval and then merge? that's probably the worfklow I'd like