Allow limiting number of platform automerge re-attempts

[vilkinsons]

Tell us more.

The behavior introduced in #26567 is welcome, as it can help overcome certain spurious failures in CI.

Suggestion: We would like to set a maximum limit on the number of re-attempts that Renovate will try.

Our case: Our pipelines keeled over yesterday due to all of our runs failing (an issue in the underlying Ubuntu image we use for our CI). This resulted in no PRs being able to pass. We use the renovate-approve bot. As a result of this, Renovate kept re-attempting in the background, even though no PRs were able to merge... which caused a huge backlog and meant merging in our fix for the failing CI was more complicated than we'd have liked. We manually flushed the queue, and "requested changes" via GitHub on our open Renovate PRs... but we could have avoided this kafuffle with a simple config option to limit the number of platform automerge re-attempts.

It's worth saying this is a feature we otherwise like, but more configurability would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for your hard work!

[rarkins]

Platform automerge should only be reattempted after a rebasing of the branches. So unless your branches were continuously needing updating, you should not have seen platform automerge re-attempts. Was that the case?

[TimDiekmann]

Hi @rarkins and thanks for picking this up. No, in the merge queue, we had a job that was failing due to a completely unrelated issue (the GH runner update broke our CI build). Every time the job was removed from the queue due to a failing check, the bot re-added it to the queue.
One of the PR where this happened: hashintel/hash#4618

[rarkins]

Can you find the debug logs for when the job was re-added to the queue?

[TimDiekmann]

I think this is the relevant part of the log output:

DEBUG: syncBranchState() (branch="deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x")
DEBUG: branch.isUpToDate(): using cached result "true" (branch="deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x")
DEBUG: getBranchPr(deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x) (branch="deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x")
DEBUG: findPr(deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x, undefined, open) (branch="deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x")
DEBUG: Found PR #4618 (branch="deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x")
DEBUG: branchExists=true (branch="deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x")
DEBUG: dependencyDashboardCheck=undefined (branch="deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x")
DEBUG: PR rebase requested=false (branch="deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x")
DEBUG: Check for closed PR because recreating closed PRs is disabled. (branch="deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x")
DEBUG: findPr(deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x, Update npm package `lockfile-lint` to v4.14.0, !open) (branch="deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x")
DEBUG: findPr(renovate/js/lockfile-lint-4.x, Update npm package `lockfile-lint` to v4.14.0, !open) (branch="deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x")
DEBUG: prAlreadyExisted=false (branch="deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x")
DEBUG: Checking if PR has been edited (branch="deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x")
DEBUG: branch.isModified(): using cached result "false" (branch="deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x")
DEBUG: Found existing branch PR (branch="deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x")
DEBUG: Checking schedule(schedule=before 4am every weekday,every weekend, tz=null, now=2024-06-19T06:28:55.878Z) (branch="deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x")
DEBUG: Checking 2 schedule(s) (branch="deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x")
DEBUG: Checking schedule "before 4am every weekday" (branch="deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x")
[redacted]
DEBUG: Checking schedule "every weekend" (branch="deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x")
[redacted]
DEBUG: Package not scheduled (branch="deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x")
DEBUG: Branch + PR exists but is not scheduled -- will update if necessary (branch="deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x")
DEBUG: Branch already exists (branch="deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x")
DEBUG: Skipping behind base branch check due to rebaseWhen=conflicted (branch="deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x")
DEBUG: isBranchConflicted(main, deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x) (branch="deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x")
DEBUG: branch.isConflicted(): using cached result "false" (branch="deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x")
DEBUG: Branch does not need rebasing (branch="deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x")
DEBUG: Using reuseExistingBranch: true (branch="deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x")
DEBUG: Returning PR from cache (branch="deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x")
DEBUG: GitHub-native automerge: success...PrNo: 4618 (branch="deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x")
DEBUG: PR platform automerge re-attempted...prNo: 4618 (branch="deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x")
DEBUG: Status check renovate/stability-days is already up-to-date (branch="deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x")
DEBUG: Checking if we can automerge branch (branch="deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x")
DEBUG: mergeStatus=no automerge (branch="deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x")
DEBUG: Ensuring PR (branch="deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x")
DEBUG: There are 0 errors and 0 warnings (branch="deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x")
DEBUG: getBranchPr(deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x) (branch="deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x")
DEBUG: findPr(deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x, undefined, open) (branch="deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x")
DEBUG: Found PR #4618 (branch="deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x")
DEBUG: getPrCache() (branch="deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x")
DEBUG: Found existing PR (branch="deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x")
DEBUG: PR cache matches but it has been edited in the past 24hrs, so processing PR (branch="deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x")
DEBUG: Fetching changelog: https://github.com/lirantal/lockfile-lint (4.13.2 -> 4.14.0) (branch="deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x")
DEBUG: Processing existing PR (branch="deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x")
DEBUG: setPrCache() (branch="deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x")
DEBUG: Pull Request #4618 does not need updating (branch="deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x")
DEBUG: PR is configured for automerge (branch="deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x")
DEBUG: checking auto-merge (branch="deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x")
DEBUG: Checking schedule(schedule=at any time, tz=null, now=2024-06-19T06:28:56.407Z) (branch="deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x")
DEBUG: No schedule defined (branch="deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x")
DEBUG: resolveBranchStatus(branchName=deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x, ignoreTests=false) (branch="deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x")
DEBUG: getBranchStatus(deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x) (branch="deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x")
DEBUG: http cache: saving https://api.github.com/repos/hashintel/hash/commits/deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x/status (etag=W/"e1c37378f9699fb9f6b298bf68db11d86e493607bb29f4d9c9d1c0191750b4e1", lastModified=undefined) (branch="deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x")
DEBUG: branch status check result (branch="deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x")
[redacted]
DEBUG: check runs result (branch="deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x")
[redacted]
DEBUG: Branch status red (branch="deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x")
DEBUG: PR is not ready for merge (branch status is red) (branch="deps/js/lockfile-lint-4.x")

The output of the last line is actually misleading as the required jobs passed.

To me it seems that the run detects the branch, noticed, that potentially it could be merged, all CI tests (on the PR) are passing and enqueues the PR.

[rarkins]

This log doesn't indicate that Renovate added any thing back to the queue - it actually explicitly indicates the opposite

[TimDiekmann]

I have digged into many different logs from renovate, the output for all of them looks almost the same, but in fact the bot did add the PR to the merge queue. None of the required jobs failed, so the PR is good to be merged.

[github-actions[bot]]

Hi there,

This issue or discussion is missing some logs, making it difficult or impossible to help you. Depending on which situation applies follow one, some or all of these instructions.

No logs at all

If you haven't posted any log yet, we need you to find and copy/paste the log into the issue template.

Finding logs on hosted app

Select me to read instructions

If you use the Mend Renovate app (GitHub):

1. Log in to the Mend Developer Portal
2. Navigate to the correct organization and repository
3. Locate the appropriate log (it may not always be the latest one)
4. Copy/paste the log contents
5. Follow the steps in the formatting your logs section

Finding logs when self-hosting

Select me to read instructions

Read the Renovate docs, troubleshooting, self-hosted to learn how to find the logs.

Insufficient logs

Select me to read instructions

If you already gave us a log, and the Renovate team said it's not enough, then follow the instructions from the No logs at all section.

Formatting your logs

Select me to read instructions

Please put your logs in a <details> and <summary> element like this:

<details><summary>Select me to see logs</summary>

```
Copy/paste your logs here, between the starting and ending backticks
```

</details>

If you feel the logs are too large to paste here, please use a service like GitHub Gist and paste the link here.

Good luck,

The Renovate team

[HonkingGoose]

Our case: Our pipelines keeled over yesterday due to all of our runs failing (an issue in the underlying Ubuntu image we use for our CI). This resulted in no PRs being able to pass. We use the renovate-approve bot. As a result of this, Renovate kept re-attempting in the background, even though no PRs were able to merge... which caused a huge backlog and meant merging in our fix for the failing CI was more complicated than we'd have liked. We manually flushed the queue, and "requested changes" via GitHub on our open Renovate PRs... but we could have avoided this kafuffle with a simple config option to limit the number of platform automerge re-attempts.

I think you might also like this feature:

• "Pause Auto-Merge" checkbox in dependency dashboard #29712

It's basically an emergency stop for the automerge process. So if things go wrong, you can pause the bot, figure out what's wrong, fix things, and then let the bot run when you're ready to automerge again. 😉