Remote Development

This document gives tips and tricks on how to run Renovate in a remote container to add features or fix bugs. You can improve this documentation by opening a pull request. For example, if you think anything is unclear, or you think something needs to be added, open a pull request!

First read the local development docs

Read the local development docs first.

What's remote development?

When you work locally, you install the tooling and code editor on your computer. You are responsible for setting up the environment correctly.

With remote development you use a container that's hosted somewhere else. You'll use the same code editor and have the same config as all other developers.

Benefits

You only need a browser and internet
You don't need to install development dependencies on your computer
Start work in a fresh environment every time
Reproducible development environment
Similar config for all developers
Use VS Code in the browser

Drawbacks

Waiting for the remote container to start
If your internet is down or Gitpod or GitHub Codespaces are down then you can't work

Gitpod

You can use Gitpod for light development work like:

Editing the docs
Running ESLint, Prettier

For proper development, use GitHub Codespaces.

The config file for Gitpod is .gitpod.yml in the root of the repository.

Gitpod comes with 50 free hours each month. If you need more hours you'll need to buy a plan with more hours.

Gitpod tips

Use yarn jest to run the tests on Gitpod

Known problems with Gitpod

There are two failing tests when running yarn jest on Gitpod:

Summary of all failing tests
 FAIL  lib/util/git/index.spec.ts (635.102 s, 319 MB heap size)
  ● util/git/index › isBranchModified() › should return false when author matches

    expected true to be false or Boolean(false)

      283 |
      284 |     it('should return false when author matches', async () => {
    > 285 |       expect(await git.isBranchModified('renovate/future_branch')).toBeFalse();
          |                                                                    ^
      286 |       expect(await git.isBranchModified('renovate/future_branch')).toBeFalse();
      287 |     });
      288 |

      at Object.<anonymous> (lib/util/git/index.spec.ts:285:68)

  ● util/git/index › isBranchModified() › should return false when author is ignored

    expected true to be false or Boolean(false)

      291 |         gitIgnoredAuthors: ['custom@example.com'],
      292 |       });
    > 293 |       expect(await git.isBranchModified('renovate/custom_author')).toBeFalse();
          |                                                                    ^
      294 |     });
      295 |
      296 |     it('should return true when custom author is unknown', async () => {

      at Object.<anonymous> (lib/util/git/index.spec.ts:293:68)

 FAIL  test/static-files.spec.ts (14.506 s, 288 MB heap size)
  ● static-files › has same static files in lib and dist

    thrown: "Exceeded timeout of 10000 ms for a test.
    Use jest.setTimeout(newTimeout) to increase the timeout value, if this is a long-running test."

      36 |   jest.setTimeout(10 * 1000);
      37 |
    > 38 |   it('has same static files in lib and dist', async () => {
         |   ^
      39 |     expect(await getFiles('dist')).toEqual(await getFiles('lib'));
      40 |   });
      41 | });

      at test/static-files.spec.ts:38:3
      at Object.<anonymous> (test/static-files.spec.ts:34:1)

GitHub Codespaces

The Renovate developers use GitHub Codespaces. The config files are in the .devcontainer folder in the repository.

You can only use GitHub Codespaces if you're invited into the beta by GitHub.

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