fix: skip repo clone when not necessary

[sebdanielsson]

Changes

This PR updates the logic for deciding when to proceed with cloning a repo.

If all of the following conditions are met, a clone will be skipped. If any of these conditions are not met, the current logic is applied.

• onboarding is false
• optimizeForDisabled is true
• requireConfig is not "optional" or "ignored", in other words, it must be set to "required"

Context

• This closes an existing Issue, Closes: #
• This doesn't close an Issue, but I accept the risk that this PR may be closed if maintainers disagree with its opening or implementation

I accept the risk, this PR solves #39831

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Documentation

• I have updated the documentation
• No documentation update is required

Not sure if this change should be reflected elsewhere, but I've updated the parts that I read while researching the current behavior.

How I've tested my work

I have verified these changes via:

• Code inspection only
• Newly added/modified unit tests
• No unit tests, but ran on a real repository
• Both unit tests + ran on a real repository

The public repository:

[RahulGautamSingh]

optimizeForDisable should not matter here as it always expects a config file

[RahulGautamSingh]

I wonder about this:

Even after this, we will do one API call per "disabled" repo each time Renovate runs in autodiscover mode. Won't it be better for your case if you run a script which pushes a renovate.json file to said repos with the setting, enabled: false?

Then turn on optimizeForDisabled and you get what you want with no code changes. I just don't see any other real benefit, except your use-case.

Also, we have autodiscoverFilter for this exact use-case.

[sebdanielsson]

optimizeForDisable should not matter here as it always expects a config file

But why the unnecessary clone if the response is already telling us that the repo doesn't contain a config file?

I wonder about this:

Even after this, we will do one API call per "disabled" repo each time Renovate runs in autodiscover mode. Won't it be better for your case if you run a script which pushes a renovate.json file to said repos with the setting, enabled: false?

Yes, I'm fully aware that there will still be one API call per repository, as it's that API call that tells us that the repository doesn't contain a renovate.json. Or do you mean that another API call will be made after the first one that optimizeForDisable does?

I'm not comfortable running a script that makes one commit to thousands of repos, many of which haven't been committed to in many, many years.

Then turn on optimizeForDisabled and you get what you want with no code changes. I just don't see any other real benefit, except your use-case.

Also, we have autodiscoverFilter for this exact use-case.

I'm not sure what you mean by "no real benefit." As I mentioned in the discussion, there might be a use case I'm not fully aware of for why a git clone is made, but if there isn't, I really don't see the point of the current behavior.

[RahulGautamSingh]

Why is it not possible to use autoDiscoverFilter in your case?

[sebdanielsson]

Why is it not possible to use autoDiscoverFilter in your case?

Because we have two collections in Azure DevOps Server, each with a couple of thousand repositories, we can’t use autodiscovery, in its current form, since Renovate tries to clone every repository, which takes a long time.

Instead we want each team to onboard themselves to Renovate by simply creating a renovate.json file in their repository.

Since any team with any repository can onboard themselves, we don’t know the repository names in advance, which if I understand the documentation correctly, makes it hard to target them using autoDiscoverFilter.

[RahulGautamSingh]

Okay.

Try adding extends: [':disableRenovate'] to your admin/global config. And, in the repos you want to run renovate on ask them to include enabled: true in their renovate config.

[sebdanielsson]

Okay.

Try adding extends: [':disableRenovate'] to your admin/global config. And, in the repos you want to run renovate on ask them to include enabled: true in their renovate config.

Thanks for the suggestion. I just tried it out but the running time for all repos (2579) was still about 75 minutes (same as before). Seems like Renovate still clones each repo. See "cloned":true in the logs below.

{"name":"renovate","hostname":"renovate-company-cronjob-29434800-c9qgp","pid":9,"level":30,"logContext":"0pJYyZ4PQakP_pxIW2a3j","repository":"Project/Repo","renovateVersion":"42.62.0","msg":"Repository started","time":"2025-12-18T20:00:13.026Z","v":0}
{"name":"renovate","hostname":"renovate-company-cronjob-29434800-c9qgp","pid":9,"level":30,"logContext":"0pJYyZ4PQakP_pxIW2a3j","repository":"Project/Repo","msg":"Repository is disabled - skipping","time":"2025-12-18T20:00:14.734Z","v":0}
{"name":"renovate","hostname":"renovate-company-cronjob-29434800-c9qgp","pid":9,"level":30,"logContext":"0pJYyZ4PQakP_pxIW2a3j","repository":"Project/Repo","msg":"Repository is disabled - skipping","time":"2025-12-18T20:00:14.734Z","v":0}
{"name":"renovate","hostname":"renovate-company-cronjob-29434800-c9qgp","pid":9,"level":30,"logContext":"0pJYyZ4PQakP_pxIW2a3j","repository":"Project/Repo","cloned":true,"durationMs":1721,"result":"disabled-no-config","status":"disabled","enabled":false,"msg":"Repository finished","time":"2025-12-18T20:00:14.744Z","v":0}

Just to make sure I haven't made a configuration error, here's my config:

                - name: RENOVATE_PLATFORM
                  value: 'azure'
                - name: RENOVATE_ENDPOINT
                  value: 'https://devops.company.local/Company/'
                - name: RENOVATE_REQUIRE_CONFIG
                  value: 'required'
                - name: RENOVATE_OPTIMIZE_FOR_DISABLED
                  value: 'true'
                - name: RENOVATE_GLOBAL_EXTENDS
                  value: '[":disableRenovate"]'
                - name: RENOVATE_AUTODISCOVER
                  value: 'true'
                - name: RENOVATE_ONBOARDING
                  value: 'false'
                - name: RENOVATE_ONBOARDING_NO_DEPS
                  value: 'disabled'
                - name: RENOVATE_ONBOARDING_CONFIG
                  value: |
                    {
                      "$schema": "https://docs.renovatebot.com/renovate-schema.json",
                      "enabled": true,
                      "extends": ["config:recommended"]
                    }
                - name: RENOVATE_GIT_AUTHOR
                  value: 'Renovate Bot <[email protected]>'

[RahulGautamSingh]

You need to use normal extends not global ones as they are resolved early and deleted.

[sebdanielsson]

You need to use normal extends not global ones as they are resolved early and deleted.

Oh okay. Is that done by changing RENOVATE_GLOBAL_EXTENDS to RENOVATE_EXTENDS in my config?

[RahulGautamSingh]

Oh okay. Is that done by changing RENOVATE_GLOBAL_EXTENDS to RENOVATE_EXTENDS in my config?

Yes