renovator-init

/renovator-init — scaffold renovator config

Set up the current repository to use the renovator skill by writing .claude/renovator.json. You write only inside the target repo; the plugin's template is read live and never modified. You scaffold config only — you do NOT create labels or process any PR (that is renovator's job, on its own first run).

The default knob values live in ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/templates/renovator.json. Load that as your base and apply the interactive overrides below. Never hard-code default values in this skill — read them from the template.

Steps

1. Idempotency guard (first)

If .claude/renovator.json already exists, STOP: report that renovator config is already present, print the file's current contents (cat .claude/renovator.json), and change nothing. Never overwrite an existing config.

2. Detect the Renovate bot login (best effort)

Used only to pre-fill the login prompt in step 3.

• If gh auth status succeeds, run: gh pr list --state open --limit 100 --json author --jq '[.[].author | select(.type == "Bot" or (.login | endswith("[bot]"))) | .login] | unique' Collect the distinct bot author logins.
• Use the detected list as the login prompt's default.
• If gh is unavailable/unauthenticated (the command errors) or the list is empty, fall back to ["renovate[bot]"] and tell the user detection was skipped or found nothing.

gh is OPTIONAL — everything after this step works offline.

3. Prompt (four questions)

Ask the user, using the template defaults (and the step-2 detection) as defaults. Everything not prompted keeps its template value.

Prompt	Config key(s)	Default
Which author login(s) count as Renovate?	renovate_authors (JSON array of strings)	detected list (step 2), else ["renovate[bot]"]
Enable autonomous fix-loops (red-CI fixes + major upgrades)?	sets BOTH enable_ci_fixer and enable_major_upgrader to the same yes/no	yes → both true
Merge method? (squash / merge / rebase)	merge_method	squash
Allow merging PRs with NO CI checks at all?	require_checks (yes ⇒ false, no ⇒ true)	no → require_checks: true

For the "no CI" prompt, if the user answers yes, first surface this warning and confirm: relaxing require_checks lets renovator merge dependency PRs with no CI signal at all, unattended — only safe for repos where that is genuinely acceptable.

max_merges_per_pass (1) and fix_attempts (3) are NOT prompted — they keep the template default but are still written (step 4) so the user can edit them later.

4. Write the config

• Create .claude/ if it does not exist (mkdir -p .claude).
• Build the final object by starting from the template and applying the four overrides, then write ALL seven knobs pretty-printed. Assemble with jq so the output is valid JSON, e.g.:

  jq -n \
    --argjson authors "$AUTHORS_JSON" \
    --arg method "$MERGE_METHOD" \
    --argjson checks "$REQUIRE_CHECKS" \
    --argjson fixers "$ENABLE_FIXERS" \
    '{
      renovate_authors: $authors,
      merge_method: $method,
      require_checks: $checks,
      max_merges_per_pass: 1,
      enable_ci_fixer: $fixers,
      enable_major_upgrader: $fixers,
      fix_attempts: 3
    }' > .claude/renovator.json
  

  ($AUTHORS_JSON is a JSON array like ["renovate[bot]"]; $REQUIRE_CHECKS and $ENABLE_FIXERS are the literal true/false. Pull max_merges_per_pass and fix_attempts from the template rather than re-typing them if you prefer a single source — either way the written values must equal the template defaults.)
• Confirm the result parses: jq -e . .claude/renovator.json >/dev/null.

5. Report next steps

• Show the path .claude/renovator.json and its final contents.
• Tell the user to review/edit it (knob meanings are in the devtools README — JSON can't carry comments).
• Tell them to invoke the renovator skill next (optionally under /loop).
• Note that renovator creates its own lifecycle labels on first run; init only wrote config.

Rules

• Read-only toward the plugin; write only inside the target repo (.claude/).
• Idempotent: safe to re-run — no-ops (with a report) if .claude/renovator.json exists.
• Do not run renovator yourself; scaffold and hand off.
• Portable: bash-3.2-safe, Linux + macOS, no GNU-only constructs.