ci(dependabot): make auto-merge work on private free-plan repos#30
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Replace the single `gh pr merge --auto` job with the visibility-agnostic label + workflow_run pattern. GitHub native auto-merge is unavailable on private free-plan repos, so `--auto` silently failed and Dependabot PRs piled up. The new flow: a `label` job (pull_request_target) runs fetch-metadata and tags low-risk PRs (gomod patch, github_actions patch/minor) with `dependabot-automerge`; a `merge` job (workflow_run after CI succeeds) does a plain `gh pr merge --squash`, which needs no native auto-merge and works on private and public repos alike. The merge job's workflow_run gates on the exact CI workflow name `CI`. Both jobs gate on `pull_request.user.login == 'dependabot[bot]'`, not `github.actor`, so human-triggered rebases stay eligible. Grouped updates are still safe: fetch-metadata reports the highest semver bump, so the update-type gate keeps majors out. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
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Why
GitHub's native auto-merge (
gh pr merge --auto) is unavailable on private repos on the free plan. The olddependabot-auto-merge.ymlrelied on it, so on this private repo--autosilently failed and low-risk Dependabot PRs piled up in the review queue with nothing merging them.What
Replace the single
auto-mergejob with the visibility-agnostic label + workflow_run pattern:label(pull_request_target) — runsdependabot/fetch-metadata, then tags low-risk PRs with thedependabot-automergelabel:merge(workflow_run, after theCIworkflow succeeds) — does a plaingh pr merge --squashon the labeled Dependabot PR. A plain squash merge needs no native auto-merge, so it works on private and public repos alike.Safety
github.event.pull_request.user.login == 'dependabot[bot]', notgithub.actor— a human@dependabot rebasemakes the actor the commenter while the PR author stays Dependabot, so the actor check would wrongly fail.gomod-patch= patch only,actions= patch + minor). For grouped PRs fetch-metadata reports the highest semver bump in the group, so gating onupdate-typekeeps majors out even when a group collapses several bumps into one PR.mergejob'sworkflow_run.workflowsis pinned to the exact CI workflow nameCI, which already triggers onpull_request— so the merge job fires only after green CI.🤖 Generated with Claude Code