Limit Renovate Node heap for pnpm runs

[ErisDS]

Summary

• add toolSettings.nodeMaxMemory: 1024 to Ghost's Renovate config
• apply the first maintainer-recommended mitigation for Mend-hosted pnpm lockfile OOMs
• give pnpm a smaller Node heap so the overall Renovate process has more headroom within Mend's 3GB runner limit

Why this change

Recent Mend Renovate runs on Ghost have been failing with kernel-out-of-memory shortly after the pnpm migration, using the full 3GB memory limit while regenerating pnpm-lock.yaml.

In the failing runs, Renovate gets as far as:

• Generating pnpm-lock.yaml for .
• Spawning pnpm install to create pnpm-lock.yaml

and then the job dies at 3.0GB (of 3.0GB limit) before it can return to branch updates or automerge logic.

Renovate maintainers suggested starting with:

{
  "toolSettings": {
    "nodeMaxMemory": 1024
  }
}

as the first mitigation for pnpm OOMs on Mend-hosted infrastructure. The goal is to keep pnpm's own Node heap smaller so the overall Renovate process stays under the hosted runner memory ceiling.

Context

• discussion: Request Community (OSS) tier for TryGhost org renovatebot/renovate#41972
• maintainer guidance: Issues with `npm` datasource updates hitting memory limits on Mend-hosted infrastructure renovatebot/renovate#40942 (comment)

Notes

This does not solve every reason a given run may do no work — schedule and automerge eligibility still matter — but it should reduce the number of runs that fail before they even reach merge logic.

[coderabbitai]

No actionable comments were generated in the recent review. 🎉

ℹ️ Recent review info

⚙️ Run configuration

Configuration used: Path: .coderabbit.yaml

Review profile: CHILL

Plan: Pro

Run ID: fe5d3023-5005-43f8-8e7f-2a6a0366bb7c

📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between fe4ef54 and 6cce768.

📒 Files selected for processing (1)

• .github/renovate.json5

---

Walkthrough

A new toolSettings configuration block has been added to the Renovate configuration file with nodeMaxMemory: 1024 to constrain the Node.js heap memory size during Renovate's tool execution, particularly affecting pnpm lockfile generation. This is a configuration-only change with no modifications to exported or public code entities. Seven lines were added to the file.

Possibly related issues

• TryGhost/Toast#826: Addresses the same objective of mitigating out-of-memory errors during pnpm lockfile regeneration by setting a memory constraint on Node.js tool execution, complementing alternative mitigation strategies.

🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 3

✅ Passed checks (3 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Title check	✅ Passed	The title clearly and concisely summarizes the main change: limiting Node heap memory for Renovate's pnpm runs.
Description check	✅ Passed	The description provides detailed context about the change, including the problem (memory exhaustion), the solution, rationale, and relevant references.
Docstring Coverage	✅ Passed	No functions found in the changed files to evaluate docstring coverage. Skipping docstring coverage check.

_{✏️ Tip: You can configure your own custom pre-merge checks in the settings.}

✨ Finishing Touches

🧪 Generate unit tests (beta)

• Create PR with unit tests
• Commit unit tests in branch fix/renovate-node-max-memory

---

_{Comment @coderabbitai help to get the list of available commands and usage tips.}

[sonarqubecloud]

Quality Gate passed

Issues
0 New issues
0 Accepted issues

Measures
0 Security Hotspots
0.0% Coverage on New Code
0.0% Duplication on New Code

See analysis details on SonarQube Cloud

[codecov]

Codecov Report

✅ All modified and coverable lines are covered by tests.
✅ Project coverage is 73.45%. Comparing base (fe4ef54) to head (6cce768).
⚠️ Report is 1 commits behind head on main.

Additional details and impacted files

@@            Coverage Diff             @@
##             main   #27350      +/-   ##
==========================================
- Coverage   73.46%   73.45%   -0.01%     
==========================================
  Files        1545     1545              
  Lines      123724   123724              
  Branches    14970    14967       -3     
==========================================
- Hits        90897    90887      -10     
- Misses      31827    31837      +10     
  Partials     1000     1000              

Flag	Coverage Δ
admin-tests	54.38% <ø> (ø)
e2e-tests	73.45% <ø> (-0.01%)	⬇️

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