Couldn't override gitAuthor

[weijiany]

Renovate-CE GitAuthor Override Issue

Context

I'm using renovate-ce to help upgrade dependencies across all repositories in our self-hosted GitLab instance. However, I've discovered that renovate-ce always uses the GitLab service account username as the git commit author.

After examining the community.js file from the Docker container (image: ghcr.io/mend/renovate-ce:11.2.0), I found that renovate-ce extracts only the username from the GitLab API response, as shown in this code:

Ga = await async function (t) {
    const r = await async function (e, t) {
        if (n.info(`Using GitLab endpoint: ${t}`), e) try {
            const r = new URL("user", t).toString(), o = {headers: {"Private-Token": e}},
                i = await Xt(r, o).json();
            return i ? (n.info({username: i?.username}, "Authenticated as GitLab user"), i) : void n.error("Failed to get bot user info")
        } catch (e) {
            n.error({err: e, body: e.response ? e.response.body : void 0}, "GitLab authentication failed")
        } else n.error("You need to configure MEND_RNV_GITLAB_PAT for your account")
    }(Ka, t);
    if (e.undefined(r)) throw new Error(ze);
    const o = r?.id ?? -1, i = r?.username ?? ""; // Only fetches username here
    return {
        id: o,
        name: i,
        botName: `${i}`,
        endpoint: t,
        gitAuthor: `${i} <${r?.email ?? ""}>`, // gitAuthor constructed from username + email
        platform: "gitlab"
    }
}(Wa)

This configuration is then stored in the RENOVATE_CONFIG environment variable, as shown in the logs:

{
    "name": "renovate",
    "hostname": "mend-renovate-ce-9fd99748b-29r4r",
    "pid": 10784,
    "level": 20,
    "logContext": "pk9dUt0jrROcxYgRGD6oO",
    "config": {
        "dependencyDashboardFooter": "\n- [ ] <!-- manual job -->Check this box to trigger a request for Renovate to run again on this repository\n",
        "endpoint": "https://gitlab.xx/api/v4/",
        "gitAuthor": "renovate-bot <[email protected]>",
        "logContext": "7135963a-8fcc-45d8-95d1-73c4b4b71c86",
        "mergeConfidenceEndpoint": "https://developer.mend.io/",
        "platform": "gitlab",
        "repositories": [
            "weijian/test"
        ],
        "token": "***********",
        "username": "renovate-bot"
    },
    "msg": "Detected config in env RENOVATE_CONFIG",
    "time": "2025-08-25T05:09:44.245Z",
    "v": 0
}

Problem

I attempted to override the gitAuthor setting in the config.js file, but since environment variables have higher priority than file configuration, my custom gitAuthor value is being overridden by the dynamically generated one from the GitLab API.

Question

Is there a method to override the hardcoded gitAuthor behavior in renovate-ce? I need to set a custom git author that differs from the GitLab service account's username and email.

Additional Details

• Image: ghcr.io/mend/renovate-ce:11.2.0
• Platform: Self-hosted GitLab
• Helm Chart: mend-renovate-ce-11.2.0

[weijiany]

Another question: does the community.js be opensource?

[Gabriel-Ladzaretti]

You can use force option in your global config.

Please bear in mind that this is not recommended, ref:
https://docs.renovatebot.com/config-overview/#force-config

config.js

+ force: {
+    gitAuthor: 'foo',
+  },

Another question: does the community.js be opensource?

There are no plans currently to make it open source.