Config Template Editing

This document describes how you can edit the branch names, commit messages, or PR titles and content.

Branch Name

The branch name is very important for Renovate because it helps determine "grouping" of updates, and also makes it efficient when an existing PR needs to be updated with a newer version. Also, if you change branchPrefix and have some upgrades "ignored" (closed without merging) then you may see duplicate PRs opened with your new branch name.

branchName has a default value of {{{branchPrefix}}}{{{managerBranchPrefix}}}{{{branchTopic}}}.

The most common type of branch name you will see looks like this: renovate/react-16.x. In this example, the branchPrefix is the default renovate/, managerBranchPrefix is empty, and branchTopic is react-16.x.

Most people can leave branchPrefix as renovate/ however if you prefer to have no forward slashes then you might pick renovate- instead. Please note that the onboarding PR is fixed to use renovate/configure however.

managerBranchPrefix is optional and by default is empty for all JavaScript dependencies. We use docker- for all Docker updates, so you might see branches like renovate/docker-ubuntu-16.x.

branchTopic depends on the package manager and upgrade type, so you will see a lot of variety. It is also the one you might be most likely to want to change, but be careful and consider posting your config to https://github.com/renovateapp/config-help first.

Commit Message

Renovate is designed to have just a single commit per branch, for merging convenience. As such, that commitMessage should reflect the contents of the branch and usually be the same as the PR Title.

commitMessage has a default value of {{commitMessagePrefix}} {{commitMessageAction}} {{commitMessageTopic}} {{commitMessageExtra}} {{commitMessageSuffix}}, with the intention that you only edit some of those subcomponents.

commitMessagePrefix is usually not necessary to configure directly, and is used by Renovate if it needs to add a prefix due to Semantic Commit conventions. Do not touch it unless you know what you're doing.

commitMessageAction is usually just 1 word, e.g. 'Update', 'Pin', 'Refresh', etc. It's usually also not necessary to edit, although maybe you prefer 'Upgrade' instead of 'Update'?

commitMessageTopic is usually 2-3 words aimed to identify what is being updated. e.g. it might be dependency react or Docker image ubuntu. You may want to edit this, but if you think your idea/requirement is a good one then maybe you can propose it to the project or publish it as a preset config for others with similar requirements.

commitMessageExtra usually refers to the version being updated to. e.g. to v16 for a major upgrade, or to v16.0.3 for a patch update. It may also be empty in some cases, e.g. if the action/topic is Pin Docker digests.

commitMessageSuffix defaults to empty and is there for flexibility and future use. Maybe for major updates you always want the PR to end with (MAJOR), for instance.

commitBody is used if you wish to add multi-line commit messages, such as for the Signed-off-by fields, or adding [skip-ci], etc. It is appended to the generated commitMessage, separated by a newline.

PR Title

Because commit messages should usually match with the PR title, the PR title template now defaults to null and inherits whatever is configured for commitMessage. If you have a requirement where prTitle should be different from commitMessage, then please raise a feature request for discussion.

PR Body

The PR Body is currently a little difficult to edit because of its size, however it should soon be redesigned like the other templates to allow more easier editing without needing to copy/paste the whole template.