Feature: Allow customizable template for Dependency Dashboard line items

[pvickery-ParamountCommerce]

Tell us more.

What would you like Renovate to be able to do?

The Dependency Dashboard currently renders each pending update using prTitle as the line item text. There is no way to customize how items appear on the dashboard independently from the PR title.

I would like to add contextual links (e.g., changelog/release notes) to dashboard line items without polluting PR titles with raw markdown.

Desired output:

- [ ] Update grafana/pdc-agent Docker tag to v0.0.61 [from 0.0.57 in kustomize](https://github.com/grafana/pdc-agent/releases)

This would render as a clickable changelog link on the dashboard issue, making it easy to evaluate updates at a glance without opening each PR or navigating to the source repo manually.

Current behavior:

Dashboard items use prTitle verbatim (or link to the PR if one exists). There is no separate template for how items render on the dashboard. Embedding markdown links in prTitle would make PR titles unreadable.

If you have any ideas on how this should be implemented, please tell us here.

A new config option like dependencyDashboardItemTemplate (or extending customizeDashboard) that supports Renovate template syntax with the same runtime variables available to prTitle (sourceUrl, depName, currentVersion, newVersion, packageFileDir, etc.).

Example config:

{
  "customizeDashboard": {
    "itemTemplate": "{{{prTitle}}} [📋]({{{sourceUrl}}}/releases)"
  }
}

When no PR exists, the template would be rendered into the issue body markdown. When a PR exists, the existing behavior of linking to the PR could remain as-is, or the template could wrap/augment it.

Is this a feature you are interested in implementing yourself?

Potentially, if pointed in the right direction.

Related issues

• Remove semantic commit prefixes from Dependency Dashboard list items #10248 (customize dashboard line format — closed)
• Dependency dashboard should additionally show the .appVersion for Helm Charts #20007 (show additional info on dashboard items — closed)

[RahulGautamSingh]

Sounds good

[jamietanna]

+1 - definitely would be happy with an addition like this, and it provides a lot more flexibility for folks.

I'd say we'd use customizeDashboard, yes

(Aside, you still seem to be using an older format of our 'Suggest an Idea' template)

[setchy]

could this be part of the dependencyDashboard configuration object #42816

[jamietanna]

Short answer yes it would be - but right now we do have customizeDashboard so it can go under there