PatchBot: automated dependency updates for your repositories

Publication date: 2026-09-15

Keeping your dependencies up to date is one of the most important — and most tedious — tasks in project maintenance. Today, we’re making it easier: PatchBot is now available on OpenCommit.

PatchBot is built on Renovate, the widely-used open-source dependency update tool, and runs on a fixed platform-wide schedule for version discovery. It watches your dependency files and opens pull requests when new versions are available. It supports package.json, go.mod, Dockerfile, Actions, and more.

Enable PatchBot in two steps

1. Add the topic patchbot to your repository
   (Repo → About section → edit Topics → add patchbot).
2. Invite patchbot as a collaborator with Write access
   (Repo → Settings → Collaboration → add patchbot).

That’s it. Within about an hour, you’ll see an onboarding pull request with a minimal renovate.json, and a Dependency Dashboard issue. The Dependency Dashboard lists all detected dependency managers and pending updates.

From that point on, update PRs appear whenever new versions are released. Merge them like any other pull request.

Customize PatchBot

PatchBot runs on a platform-wide schedule (roughly hourly), but you control what it does. Your repo’s own renovate.json controls everything: automerge rules, grouping, labels, dependency ranges, and more. See Renovate’s configuration docs for all available options.

Platform-wide limits apply (PR rate caps), so very large backlogs and rapid dashboard interactions appear gradually, not all at once.

Disable PatchBot

Remove the patchbot topic from your repository. At the next run (within about an hour) your repo is no longer managed. Close or merge any open update PRs yourself.

Learn more

For full details, visit the PatchBot documentation. Questions or problems? Check the Dependency Dashboard issue in your repo first, or ask in the issue tracker.