Renovate Operator: Kubernetes-Native Dependency Updates

Keeping dependencies up to date across dozens or hundreds of repositories is a constant challenge for platform teams. Renovate solves the automation side, but self-hosting it often means wrestling with cron jobs, limited visibility, and no native integration with your cluster. The Renovate Operator changes that by bringing dependency updates into the Kubernetes control plane.

What Is Renovate Operator?

Renovate Operator is an open-source Kubernetes operator that runs Renovate as a first-class cluster workload. Instead of managing external schedulers or standalone containers, you define schedules and configurations through Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs). The operator handles discovery, job lifecycle, and parallel execution automatically.

Unlike Mend Renovate CE, the operator is fully open source with no signup or license key required. It adds Kubernetes-native features that self-hosted setups typically lack.

Key Features

• CRD-based scheduling: Define cron schedules declaratively in your cluster manifests
• Auto-discovery with filtering: Automatically find repositories and filter by group or topic
• Parallel execution: Run multiple Renovate jobs concurrently with configurable limits
• Built-in web UI: Track per-project status and run history without external dashboards
• Prometheus metrics: Export health checks and job metrics for your existing monitoring stack
• High availability: Leader election ensures reliable operation across replicas

Installation

Deploy with Helm in under a minute:

helm repo add mogenius https://helm.mogenius.com/public --force-update
helm -n renovate-operator upgrade --install renovate-operator \
  mogenius/renovate-operator --create-namespace --wait

Or use the OCI registry:

helm -n renovate-operator upgrade --install renovate-operator \
  oci://ghcr.io/mogenius/helm-charts/renovate-operator \
  --create-namespace --wait

How It Works

The operator follows a straightforward workflow:

1. At the scheduled time, a discovery job scans your configured platforms (GitHub, GitLab)
2. Discovered projects appear in the built-in UI with status tracking
3. The operator queues projects and starts Renovate jobs respecting your parallelism limit
4. Job lifecycle management handles TTL, deadlines, and retries automatically

Operational Tips

Pair the operator with GitOps workflows by storing your CRDs in version control. Use the Prometheus metrics endpoint to alert on failed jobs or unusual run durations. For large organizations, configure topic-based filtering to split workloads across multiple operator instances.

Conclusion

Renovate Operator brings dependency management into the Kubernetes ecosystem where platform teams already operate. If you self-host Renovate and run Kubernetes, this operator delivers the control, observability, and native scheduling that standalone setups cannot match.

Looking to automate more of your infrastructure operations? Akmatori helps SRE teams build AI-powered agents that handle routine tasks, powered by Gcore's global edge infrastructure.