How to update pinned versions for local> presets?

[josiblair]

How are you running Renovate?

Self-hosted Renovate

If you're self-hosting Renovate, tell us which platform (GitHub, GitLab, etc) and which version of Renovate.

GitLab

Please tell us more about your question or problem

Summary

On a self-hosted Renovate connected to a self-hosted GitLab, my downstream repos pin a shared preset using the local> prefix.

I see in the docs that Local Presets are unsupported for the renovate-config-presets automatic dependency updates, so I’m looking for guidance on a supported way to auto-bump a pinned local> preset on self-hosted GitLab.

Goal

• Maintain a central Renovate preset in a shared repo, semver-tagged (0.10.6, 1.0.0, …).
• In downstream projects, pin the preset version and have Renovate raise MRs when a new tag is available.

Example Config Extending Preset

{
  "$schema": "https://docs.renovatebot.com/renovate-schema.json",
  "extends": [
    "local>project-blue/components/renovate//src/renovate.json5#0.10.6"
  ],
}

What happens

Renovate recognizes the preset but lists it as unsupported for updates:

"renovate-config-presets": [
  {
    "deps": [
      {
        "depName": "project-blue/components/renovate",
        "skipReason": "unsupported-datasource",
        "updates": [],
        "packageName": "project-blue/components/renovate"
      }
    ],
    "packageFile": "renovate.json5"
  }
]

So the #0.10.6 never bumps, even though newer tags exist in the preset repo.

What I've Tried

1. Switching local> to gitlab>

   Using:

   {
     "$schema": "https://docs.renovatebot.com/renovate-schema.json",
     "extends": [
       "gitlab>project-blue/components/renovate//src/renovate.json5#0.10.6"
     ],
   }

   On our self-hosted GitLab, Renovate did not use our self-hosted endpoint; it behaved as if gitlab> referred to gitlab.com, so resolution failed.
   If there’s a config to map gitlab> to a custom base URL on self-hosted, apologies as I couldn't find where it was in the docs.

2. Custom regex manager to bump the # tag inside extends
   I tried parsing the currentValue and sourcing versions via gitlab-tags to update the local> line. Renovate appears to prevent customManagers from modifying files/sections handled by the renovate-config-presets manager, so no update occurred.

3. Tagging verified
   The preset repo is semver-tagged (0.10.6, 1.0.0, …), and the file exists at those tags.

What I expected

Either:

• A way for gitlab> preset references to resolve against a self-hosted GitLab base URL so the presets manager can auto-bump pinned #tags, or

• A supported approach to auto-update pinned local> presets (e.g., a mapping from local> → {gitlab-tags, registryUrl}), or

• The ability for a customManager to update the extends tag when renovate-config-presets declines to.

Question

1. Could this be related to the preset file naming docs note about deprecating renovate.json as the default preset file name and recommending default.json?

   “We’ve deprecated using a renovate.json file for the default preset file name in a repository. If you’re using a renovate.json file to share your presets, rename it to default.json.”

Logs (if relevant)

Logs

DEBUG: Matched 1 file(s) for manager renovate-config-presets: renovate.json5 (repository=project-blue/components/zarf-scan)

...

DEBUG: manager extract durations (ms) (repository=project-blue/components/zarf-scan)
       "managers": {
         "gitlabci": 103,
         "dockerfile": 110,
         "gitlabci-include": 135,
         "ansible": 139,
         "gomod": 142,
         "renovate-config-presets": 167,
         "regex": 591,
         "html": 410,
         "helm-values": 470,
         "kubernetes": 474
       }

...

DEBUG: Found renovate-config-presets package files (repository=project-blue/components/zarf-scan)

...

INFO: Dependency extraction complete (repository=project-blue/components/zarf-scan, baseBranch=main)
       "stats": {
         "managers": {
           "dockerfile": {"fileCount": 1, "depCount": 2},
           "gitlabci": {"fileCount": 1, "depCount": 11},
           "gomod": {"fileCount": 1, "depCount": 54},
           "helm-values": {"fileCount": 8, "depCount": 19},
           "renovate-config-presets": {"fileCount": 1, "depCount": 1},
           "regex": {"fileCount": 6, "depCount": 16}
         },
         "total": {"fileCount": 18, "depCount": 103}
       }

...

"renovate-config-presets": [
  {
    "deps": [
      {
        "depName": "project-blue/components/renovate",
        "skipReason": "unsupported-datasource",
        "updates": [],
        "packageName": "project-blue/components/renovate"
      }
    ],
    "packageFile": "renovate.json5"
  }
]