deno-outdated

A GitHub Action that checks for outdated Deno dependencies, updates them, and opens a pull request.

Fills the gap left by Dependabot and Renovate, neither of which support Deno's deno.json imports or deno.lock today. Uses Deno's built-in deno outdated --update under the hood.

Usage

Add a scheduled workflow to your repository:

name: Update Deno Dependencies

on:
  schedule:
    - cron: "0 9 * * 1" # Weekly on Monday at 9am UTC
  workflow_dispatch: {}

jobs:
  update:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    permissions:
      contents: write
      pull-requests: write
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - uses: denoland/setup-deno@v2
        with:
          deno-version: v2.x

      - uses: wyattjoh/deno-outdated@v1
        with:
          token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

Inputs

Input	Required	Default	Description
token	Yes		GitHub token for creating pull requests
latest	No	false	Update beyond semver ranges to latest versions
base-branch	No	main	Base branch for the pull request
labels	No		Comma-separated labels to add to the pull request
branch	No	deps/deno-outdated	Branch name for the update PR
commit-message	No	deps: update deno dependencies	Git commit message

Outputs

Output	Description
updated	Whether any dependencies were updated (true/false)
summary	Markdown summary of outdated dependencies
pull-request-number	Number of the created/updated pull request (empty if none)

Behavior

• Runs deno outdated to detect outdated dependencies
• Runs deno outdated --update to update deno.json and regenerate deno.lock
• Creates a pull request with the changes (or updates an existing one)
• Idempotent: skips PR creation if no dependencies changed
• Supports both semver-compatible updates and --latest for major bumps

Examples

Update to latest versions (including major bumps)

- uses: wyattjoh/deno-outdated@v1
  with:
    token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
    latest: "true"

Custom branch and labels

- uses: wyattjoh/deno-outdated@v1
  with:
    token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
    branch: deps/weekly-update
    labels: "dependencies,automated"