How to handle date-based version ranges properly?

[thislooksfun]

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A Mend.io-hosted app

Which platform you running Renovate on?

GitHub.com

Which version of Renovate are you using?

No response

Please tell us more about your question or problem

We have Renovate set up over on the catppuccin/home-assistant repo, in part to keep our demo instance using the latest Home Assistant version. The issue is that Home Assistant versions using the format year.month.patch (e.g. the latest version is 2026.1.0), which means that the "major" version is actually year.month, but Renovate is parsing it as SemVer, and thus thinking it is major version 2026. Is there any way to tell Renovate that the major version should be "2026.1"?

What I really want is that if we are behind, updates are split into two groups: major (year + month) and minor/patch (final number). For example, given the versions 2025.11.0, 2025.11.1, 2025.11.2, 2025.11.3, 2025.12.0, 2025.12.1, 2025.12.2, 2025.12.3, 2025.12.4, 2025.12.5, 2026.1.0, if we are on 2025.11.1, I would want to see two PRs: one minor/patch update ("update to 2025.11.3"), and one major update ("update to 2026.1" [note that this is not "update to 2026", I want it to include the month]). If separateMultipleMajor is on, then I would want an additional major update PR ("update to 2025.12"). Is this possible? I know I can (ab)use the packageRules to override automerge, but how can I make it include the month in the PR title / commit message when crossing year boundaries?

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[Gugu7264]

Hello!

I think the separateMajorMinor option is what you're looking for. Setting it to false should solve your issue.

From the documentation:

Renovate will not separate major or minor branches.

[jamietanna]

Yep, and possibly https://docs.renovatebot.com/configuration-options/#separatemultipleminor too :)

[jamietanna]

The issue is that Home Assistant versions using the format year.month.patch (e.g. the latest version is 2026.1.0), which means that the "major" version is actually year.month, but Renovate is parsing it as SemVer, and thus thinking it is major version 2026. Is there any way to tell Renovate that the major version should be "2026.1"?
how can I make it include the month in the PR title / commit message when crossing year boundaries?

Yeah so in this case, you'll want to use https://docs.renovatebot.com/modules/versioning/regex/ to handle this, like so:

  packageRules: [

    /*
           {
             "deps": [
               {
                 "depName": "ghcr.io/home-assistant/home-assistant",
                 "packageName": "ghcr.io/home-assistant/home-assistant",
                 "currentValue": "2025.11.3",
                 "replaceString": "ghcr.io/home-assistant/home-assistant:2025.11.3",
                 "autoReplaceStringTemplate": "{{depName}}{{#if newValue}}:{{newValue}}{{/if}}{{#if newDigest}}@{{newDigest}}{{/if}}",
                 "datasource": "docker"
               }
             ],
             "packageFile": "demo/compose.yml"
           }
           */

    {
      "matchPackageNames": ["ghcr.io/home-assistant/home-assistant"],
      "versioning": "regex:^(?<major>\\d+\\.\\d+)\\.(?<minor>\\d+)(?<compatibility>.*)"
    },
  ],

This would lead to:

{
	"depName": "ghcr.io/home-assistant/home-assistant",
		"packageName": "ghcr.io/home-assistant/home-assistant",
		"currentValue": "2025.11.3",
		"replaceString": "ghcr.io/home-assistant/home-assistant:2025.11.3",
		"autoReplaceStringTemplate": "{{depName}}{{#if newValue}}:{{newValue}}{{/if}}{{#if newDigest}}@{{newDigest}}{{/if}}",
		"datasource": "docker",
		"updates": [
		{
			"bucket": "non-major",
			"newVersion": "2025.12.5",
			"newValue": "2025.12.5",
			"newMajor": 2025,
			"newMinor": 12,
			"newPatch": 5,
			"updateType": "minor",
			"isBreaking": false,
			"newDigest": "sha256:9a5a3eb4a213dfb25932dee9dc6815c9305f78cecb5afa716fa2483163d8fb5b",
			"branchName": "renovate/ghcr.io-home-assistant-home-assistant-2025.x"
		},
		{
			"bucket": "major",
			"newVersion": "2026.1.0",
			"newValue": "2026.1.0",
			"newMajor": 2026,
			"newMinor": 1,
			"newPatch": 0,
			"updateType": "major",
			"isBreaking": true,
			"newDigest": "sha256:97d63b3d0028b6b52ad8e5ac7b014c3404e69bf1656b5489eec48b59184e0bc7",
			"branchName": "renovate/ghcr.io-home-assistant-home-assistant-2026.x"
		},
		{
			"isPinDigest": true,
			"updateType": "pinDigest",
			"newValue": "2025.11.3",
			"newDigest": "sha256:f971850a6ec1fb5c5fd4e1748058e9e1f589aaf0da933b8d88bb5dee03f5b5e8",
			"branchName": "renovate/pin-dependencies"
		}
	],
	"versioning": "docker",
	"warnings": [],
	"sourceUrl": "https://github.com/home-assistant/core",
	"registryUrl": "https://ghcr.io",
	"homepage": "https://www.home-assistant.io/",
	"lookupName": "home-assistant/home-assistant",
	"currentVersion": "2025.11.3",
	"isSingleVersion": true,
	"fixedVersion": "2025.11.3"
}

Notice that the multiple numbers of the major isn't allowed, so it won't quite work with what you're hoping for 🤔

[jamietanna]

Putting them all together:

{
  "$schema": "https://docs.renovatebot.com/renovate-schema.json",
  "packageRules": [
    {
      "matchPackageNames": ["ghcr.io/home-assistant/home-assistant"],
      "versioning": "regex:^(?<major>\\d+\\.\\d+)\\.(?<minor>\\d+)(?<compatibility>.*)",
      "commitMessageExtra": "to {{#if isPinDigest}}{{{newDigestShort}}}{{else}}{{prettyNewMajor}}.{{prettyNewMinor}}{{/if}}",
      "separateMajorMinor": true,
      "separateMultipleMinor": true
    }
  ]
}

Would give you the following proposed updates:

DEBUG: packageFiles with updates (repository=catppuccin/home-assistant, baseBranch=main)
       "config": {
         "docker-compose": [
           {
             "deps": [
               {
                 "depName": "ghcr.io/home-assistant/home-assistant",
                 "packageName": "ghcr.io/home-assistant/home-assistant",
                 "currentValue": "2025.11.3",
                 "replaceString": "ghcr.io/home-assistant/home-assistant:2025.11.3",
                 "autoReplaceStringTemplate": "{{depName}}{{#if newValue}}:{{newValue}}{{/if}}{{#if newDigest}}@{{newDigest}}{{/if}}",
                 "datasource": "docker",
                 "updates": [
                   {
                     "bucket": "v2025.4",
                     "newVersion": "2025.12.4",
                     "newValue": "2025.12.4",
                     "newMajor": 2025,
                     "newMinor": 4,
                     "newPatch": 0,
                     "updateType": "minor",
                     "isBreaking": false,
                     "branchName": "renovate/ghcr.io-home-assistant-home-assistant-2025.4.x"
                   },
                   {
                     "bucket": "v2025.5",
                     "newVersion": "2025.12.5",
                     "newValue": "2025.12.5",
                     "newMajor": 2025,
                     "newMinor": 5,
                     "newPatch": 0,
                     "updateType": "minor",
                     "isBreaking": false,
                     "branchName": "renovate/ghcr.io-home-assistant-home-assistant-2025.5.x"
                   },
                   {
                     "bucket": "major",
                     "newVersion": "2026.1.0",
                     "newValue": "2026.1.0",
                     "newMajor": 2026,
                     "newMinor": 0,
                     "newPatch": 0,
                     "updateType": "major",
                     "isBreaking": true,
                     "branchName": "renovate/ghcr.io-home-assistant-home-assistant-2026.x"
                   }
                 ],
                 "versioning": "regex:^(?<major>\\d+\\.\\d+)\\.(?<minor>\\d+)(?<compatibility>.*)",
                 "warnings": [],
                 "sourceUrl": "https://github.com/home-assistant/core",
                 "registryUrl": "https://ghcr.io",
                 "homepage": "https://www.home-assistant.io/",
                 "lookupName": "home-assistant/home-assistant",
                 "currentVersion": "2025.11.3",
                 "isSingleVersion": true,
                 "fixedVersion": "2025.11.3"
               }
             ],
             "packageFile": "demo/compose.yml"
           }
         ],