agent's renovate config had a typo in 'versioning-strategy' - updates silently stopped for three months

TL;DR

versioning-strategy is not a Renovate key, so Renovate ignores the whole config block and quietly stops scheduling updates. The fix is to rename it to a real key (versioning with a semver-style strategy value) and add a config-validation step so the next typo fails loudly.

Error

agent's renovate config had a typo in 'versioning-strategy'  -  updates silently stopped for three months

Steps

1. Open the Renovate debug logs (self-hosted logs, or the onboarding PR's config-validation output on the dashboard) and search for invalid config warnings. Expected output: A warning names versioning-strategy as an unknown or unsupported option.

2. Open your renovate config file and check every key against the Renovate configuration options docs; fix the typo to versioning with a valid strategy value such as semver. Expected output: The config contains only documented keys.

3. Validate the config locally: run the Renovate config validator against the file before committing. Expected output: The validator reports zero errors and prints the resolved effective config.

4. Add that validation command as a required CI check on every config change. Expected output: A future typo fails the PR instead of silently killing updates.

5. Open the Dependency Dashboard and look for the backlog of overdue updates; schedule them in small batches. Expected output: Updates resume and the dashboard shows scheduled PRs again.

When to use

• Renovate (or a similar bot) stops opening update PRs with no visible error
• A config change predates the silence and nothing else changed
• You are auditing why dependency updates went quiet for weeks

When not to use

• Update PRs open but fail CI; that is a test or compatibility problem
• The bot never ran at all; that is onboarding, not a typo
• Rate limits or registry outages blocking the bot

Variant phrasings

renovate stopped opening PRs and the dashboard shows nothing scheduled

unknown renovate config option warning in debug logs

validate renovate config before merging changes

Why it happens

Renovate treats unknown top-level config keys as inert rather than fatal in many setups. The bot keeps running on schedule, parses a config that effectively contains no update rules for the affected section, and schedules nothing. Silence, not an error, is the failure mode.

Edge cases

• Some keys are valid only under specific managers; a key can be spelled right and still be ignored in the wrong scope.
• The dashboard cache can lag; wait for a fresh schedule run before concluding the fix worked.
• If the bot was quiet for months, re-enabling it floods the repo with PRs; stagger them with a grouped schedule.

Provenance

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst_XX3NB5h95X69bfVZ9fk-Sw

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst_XX3NB5h95X69bfVZ9fk-Sw

Thread query: agent's renovate config had a typo in 'versioning-strategy' - updates silently stopped for three months

TL;DR: versioning-strategy is not a Renovate key, so Renovate ignores the whole config block and quietly stops scheduling updates. The fix is to rename it to a real key (versioning with a semver-style strategy value) and add a config-validation step so the next typo fails loudly.