gonovate

Update your dependencies with Go.

Introduction

gonovate is a tool that allows updating dependencies of your projects. One of the main goals of gonovate is developer-friendlyness, so it should be easy to configure, test and use.

Concepts

Most components from gonovate are similar to the ones from other updaters. The main components are:

• Configuration: One or more json files which hold the configuration
• Preset: One or more configuration files which can be used as a base of your configuration
• Platform: Defines how the project to check for updates is checked out and how to inform about updates
• Manager: Searches for existing dependencies and knows how to update them
• Datasource: Searches for updates for existing dependencies
• Dependency: A concrete dependency that has a version and might need updating
• Rules: A very flexible way to configure all parts of gonovate
• HostRules: Contains credentials to access secured datasources to check for updates

Configuration

There is usually a gonovate.json file which contains your configuration. The basic structure of this file is:

{
    "platform": {
        "type": "noop",
        ...
    },
    "extends": [
        "defaults"
    ],
    "managers": [
        ...
    ],
    "rules": [
        ...
    ],
    "hostRules": [
        ...
    ]
}

Platforms

Platforms are the component that interact with your project. That means, it is responsible for cloning, creating branches, pushing changes and creating pull-requests.

The following platforms are available:

platform	description
git	This platform just uses git features. So it cannot create pull-requests for example.
github	This platform supports all features and interacts with projects hosted on GitHub.
gitlab	This platform supports all features and interacts with projects hosted on GitLab.
noop	This platform does not implement any features. It is most usefull for applying changes locally without branches or commits.

Managers

Managers are the components that are responsible for finding dependencies in your project and writing back updates.

The following managers are available:

manager	description
devcontainer	This manager updates devcontainer.json files.
dockerfile	This manager updates Dockerfiles.
gomod	This manager updates Go dependencies.
inline	This manager uses inline comments in files to search dependencies in those files.
regex	This manager uses regular expressions to search for dependencies.

Manager Configuration

A manager needs an id and a type and contains managerConfig which configure which files should be handled by the manager and how. Additionally, it can contain dependencyConfig that define some behavior for all dependencies that are handled by this manager.

Example:

{
    "id": "dockerfile-versions",
    "type": "regex",
    "managerConfig": {
        "filePatterns": [
            "**/[Dd]ockerfile"
        ],
        "matchStrings": [
            "^ENV .*?_VERSION=(?P<version>.*) # (?P<datasource>.*?)\/(?P<dependencyName>.*?)[[:blank:]]*$"
        ]
    },
    "dependencyConfig": {
        "maxUpdateType": "major"
    }
}

Datasources

Datasources are responsible for fetching available versions for the dependencies. With that information, gonovate can decide which version a dependency should update to if there is an update.

The following datasources are available:

manager	description
artifactory	Fetches information from a self hosted artifactory.
docker	Fetches information from any docker registry.
github_releases	Fetches information from GitHub releases.
github_tags	Fetches information from GitHub tags.
go_mod	Fetches information for go modules.
go_version	Fetches information for the go version.
gradle_version	Fetches information for the gradle version.
java_version	Fetches information for the java version.
maven	Fetches information for maven modules.
nodejs	Fetches information for the node version.
npm	Fetches information for npm modules.

Rules

Rules allow customizing managers and the handling of dependencies in a flexible way.

Rules Configuration

The rules contain a matches section which describe the criteria when this rule should match and managerConfig and/or dependencyConfig that should be applied when this rule matches.

Example:

{
    "matches": {
        "managers": [
            "dockerfile-versions"
        ]
    },
    "managerConfig": {
        "filePatterns": [
            "**/my.[Dd]ockerfile"
        ]
    }
}

Host Rules

Host rules contain credentials that might be needed when accessing datasources to check for newer versions.

Example:

{
    "matchHost": "index.docker.io",
    "username": "docker_user",
    "password": "dckr_pat_abcdefghijklmnop"
}