Enhance Renovate Configuration For Livestore.js Dependency Management

Hey guys! Today, we're diving deep into how to supercharge our dependency updates in LiveStore.js. We're talking about leveling up our Renovate configuration to handle updates like pros. This isn't just about keeping things current; it's about ensuring our project remains stable, secure, and efficient. Let's get started!

1. Tackling the Playwright Grouping Issue

Understanding the Problem

So, first things first, we need to address a bit of a hiccup we've noticed with our Playwright updates. As highlighted in PR #481, the current setup isn't grouping Playwright-related updates as smoothly as we'd like. Specifically, the playwright-web-flake package seems to be getting digest updates separately, which should ideally be bundled with the rest of the Playwright crew. Our goal here is to ensure that all Playwright-related packages are updated together in a single, neat pull request.

Diving into the Configuration

Let's take a peek at our current Renovate configuration in .github/renovate.jsonc to see what's going on. The relevant snippet looks something like this:

{
 "description": "Group Playwright updates",
 "groupName": "Playwright",
 "matchPackageNames": ["@playwright/test", "https://github.com/pietdevries94/playwright-web-flake"],
 "matchUpdateTypes": ["patch", "minor", "major", "digest"]
}

Now, on the surface, this looks pretty straightforward. We're telling Renovate to group updates for @playwright/test and playwright-web-flake (identified by its GitHub URL) whenever there's a patch, minor, major, or digest update. So, why isn't it working as expected? That's the million-dollar question we need to answer through a bit of investigation.

The Investigation Begins

The key here is to figure out why the current rule isn't matching playwright-web-flake updates correctly. There could be a few potential culprits:

1. Incorrect Package Name Matching: Double-check that the package name or identifier we're using for playwright-web-flake is exactly what Renovate expects. Sometimes, a slight discrepancy in the name or URL can throw things off.
2. Update Type Mismatch: While we're matching digest updates, it's worth verifying that the updates we're seeing for playwright-web-flake are indeed classified as digests by Renovate. If they're being categorized differently, our rule won't catch them.
3. Renovate's Matching Logic: It's possible there's a quirk in how Renovate's matching logic works that we're not accounting for. This might require digging into Renovate's documentation or even experimenting with different matching patterns.

The Path to Resolution

To get to the bottom of this, we need to roll up our sleeves and do some detective work. Here's a potential game plan:

• Review Renovate Logs: Check Renovate's logs to see how it's identifying the playwright-web-flake updates. This should give us clues about the update type and package name Renovate is using.
• Experiment with Matching Patterns: Try tweaking the matchPackageNames pattern. For instance, we could try using a wildcard or a regular expression to see if that improves matching.
• Consult Renovate Documentation: The Renovate documentation is a treasure trove of information. We might find insights into how grouping rules work and any potential gotchas.

By systematically investigating these areas, we should be able to pinpoint the issue and tweak our configuration to ensure those Playwright updates are grouped together like they should be.

2. Fixing Peer Dependency Range Expansion

Understanding the Issue with Peer Dependencies

Alright, next up on our Renovate to-do list is tackling a peculiar behavior we've observed with peer dependencies. Currently, when Renovate updates peer dependencies, it's expanding the version ranges in a way that's not quite ideal. Instead of simply bumping to the next version (e.g., ~1.53.1 to ~1.54.0), it's creating expanded ranges like ~1.53.1 || ~1.54.0. This isn't the end of the world, but it can lead to some confusion and potentially make version resolution a bit more complex than it needs to be.

Our Goal: Simple Version Bumps

What we're aiming for is a cleaner, more straightforward approach: when a peer dependency needs an update, we want Renovate to bump it to the next compatible version within the same major version. This keeps things predictable and aligns with common practices for managing peer dependencies. So, instead of those expanded ranges, we're looking for those nice, clean version bumps.

Examining the Current Configuration

To understand why this is happening, let's revisit our Renovate configuration. We have a rule specifically designed to handle peer dependencies, which looks like this:

{
 "description": "Peer deps – bump to new ~ range",
 "matchDepTypes": ["peerDependencies"],
 "rangeStrategy": "bump"
}

This configuration seems pretty clear: we're telling Renovate that for any peerDependencies, it should use the `rangeStrategy: