Startup crash from an unhandled rejection exits 0, so a broken run reports success

[cplieger]

How are you running Renovate?

Self-hosted Renovate CLI

Which platform you running Renovate on?

GitHub.com

Which version of Renovate are you using?

44.78.0 and 44.79.0 crash this way (missing common-tags); the exit-code path is unchanged in 44.82.0 and on main at 282a0f3.

Please tell us more about your question or problem

When Renovate fails before its first repository with an unhandled promise rejection, the process logs ERROR: unhandledRejection and then exits with code 0. Twice in one week a release imported a module the Docker image does not contain (tar in 44.63.0, #45697; common-tags in 44.78.0 and 44.79.0, fixed by #45850), and both times every run died at startup while reporting success to whatever launched it. My runs are started by a wrapper that watches the exit code, so it kept reporting healthy for a day while no repository was processed and no PR was opened. The reporter of #45697 saw the same thing: "the job reports as green".

Minimal reproduction, in any empty directory, no config:

$ docker run --rm --network none -v "$PWD:/repro" -w /repro renovate/renovate:44.78.0 --platform=local
ERROR: unhandledRejection
       "err": {
         "code": "ERR_MODULE_NOT_FOUND",
         "message": "Cannot find package 'common-tags' imported from /usr/local/renovate/dist/workers/repository/update/pr/index.js"
       }
$ echo $?
0

The 0 comes from lib/renovate.ts, which runs the whole bootstrap inside void (async () => { ... })(). The unhandledRejection handler registered on line 14 only logs. When await import('./workers/global/index.ts') on line 27 rejects, process.exitCode = await otel.instrument('run', start) on line 28 never runs, the async function's own promise rejects into void, the handler logs it, the event loop drains and node exits 0. Nothing on this path sets process.exitCode, and no uncaughtException handler is registered. A rejection during a run normally ends in exit 1 anyway: the handler logs at error level, start() finds that record through getProblems() and returns 1. A rejection before start() has no such backstop.

Two ways to fix it, smallest first:

1. Set process.exitCode ??= 1 inside the existing unhandledRejection handler. A startup rejection then exits 1. During a run the final status is still whatever start() returns, and a rejection that arrives after start() has returned leaves that code untouched, including an error-specific one from exitCodeForErrors.
2. Chain a .catch() onto the bootstrap function that logs the error (falling back to console.error when the logger has not been initialised yet) and sets process.exitCode = 1.

Running the built image once with --platform=local --dry-run=extract in the release pipeline catches this class before it ships: the import graph is loaded before the local platform does any work. I ran that command against 44.63.0 and 44.78.0 (both log the missing module and exit 0 today, exit 1 with the fix) and against 44.82.0 (Repository finished, exit 0, 3 seconds with --network none).

Workaround I am using: RENOVATE_NODE_ARGS=--unhandled-rejections=strict, which the image's launcher passes to node; the same crash then exits 1. Option 1 is up as #45895.

Logs (if relevant)

Logs

The same crash with LOG_FORMAT=json, from the reproduction above:

{"name":"renovate","hostname":"804a59b419e2","pid":9,"level":50,"logContext":"9f34fcea-0b43-4923-9283-6e915341c048","err":{"code":"ERR_MODULE_NOT_FOUND","message":"Cannot find package 'common-tags' imported from /usr/local/renovate/dist/workers/repository/update/pr/index.js","stack":"Error: Cannot find package 'common-tags' imported from /usr/local/renovate/dist/workers/repository/update/pr/index.js\n    at Object.getPackageJSONURL (node:internal/modules/package_json_reader:331:9)\n    at packageResolve (node:internal/modules/esm/resolve:784:25)\n    at moduleResolve (node:internal/modules/esm/resolve:873:18)\n    at defaultResolve (node:internal/modules/esm/resolve:1006:11)\n    at ModuleLoader.#cachedDefaultResolve (node:internal/modules/esm/loader:705:20)\n    at ModuleLoader.#resolveAndMaybeBlockOnLoaderThread (node:internal/modules/esm/loader:725:38)\n    at ModuleLoader.resolveSync (node:internal/modules/esm/loader:763:56)\n    at ModuleLoader.#resolve (node:internal/modules/esm/loader:687:17)\n    at ModuleLoader.getOrCreateModuleJob (node:internal/modules/esm/loader:607:35)\n    at ModuleJob.syncLink (node:internal/modules/esm/module_job:276:33)\n    at ModuleJob.link (node:internal/modules/esm/module_job:381:17)\n    at new ModuleJob (node:internal/modules/esm/module_job:360:26)\n    at ModuleLoader.#getOrCreateModuleJobAfterResolve (node:internal/modules/esm/loader:576:11)\n    at afterResolve (node:internal/modules/esm/loader:611:52)\n    at ModuleLoader.getOrCreateModuleJob (node:internal/modules/esm/loader:617:12)\n    at ModuleJob.syncLink (node:internal/modules/esm/module_job:276:33)\n    at ModuleJob.link (node:internal/modules/esm/module_job:381:17)\n    at new ModuleJob (node:internal/modules/esm/module_job:360:26)\n    at ModuleLoader.#getOrCreateModuleJobAfterResolve (node:internal/modules/esm/loader:576:11)\n    at afterResolve (node:internal/modules/esm/loader:611:52)"},"msg":"unhandledRejection","time":"2026-09-11T18:44:30.345Z","v":0}

[RahulGautamSingh]

Fixed by: #45895