feat(dependabot): auto-merge major GitHub Actions updates

[don-petry]

Summary

• Auto-merge major version bumps for GitHub Actions (previously required manual review)
• App ecosystem major updates still require human review (no change)
• Updated eligibility logic in both the direct and reusable automerge workflows
• Updated dependabot-policy.md to document the new behavior

Rationale: GitHub Actions are SHA-pinned and don't affect app runtime stability. gh pr merge --auto ensures CI must pass before merging, so breaking interface changes (e.g., renamed inputs) are caught automatically. This eliminates the manual review bottleneck for Action updates.

Changed files

File	Change
.github/workflows/dependabot-automerge.yml	Skip major-version gate when ecosystem is github-actions
.github/workflows/dependabot-automerge-reusable.yml	Same logic change in reusable workflow
standards/dependabot-policy.md	Document Actions vs app-ecosystem auto-merge distinction

Test plan

• Verify existing patch/minor Action PRs still auto-merge (no regression)
• Verify a major Action update PR (if one exists) gets auto-approved
• Verify app ecosystem major updates are still blocked from auto-merge

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

Summary by CodeRabbit

• Chores
  • Updated Dependabot auto-merge policy: GitHub Actions updates now automatically merge for all version types, including major releases. Other ecosystem dependencies remain restricted to patch and minor updates, with major versions requiring manual review.

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ℹ️ Review info

⚙️ Run configuration

Configuration used: Organization UI

Review profile: ASSERTIVE

Plan: Pro

Run ID: d6e31d03-2eed-4219-978a-aa747b1f3d7a

📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between e2a96da and 3069e05.

📒 Files selected for processing (3)

• .github/workflows/dependabot-automerge-reusable.yml
• .github/workflows/dependabot-automerge.yml
• standards/dependabot-policy.md

📝 Walkthrough

Walkthrough

Modified Dependabot auto-merge eligibility to allow major version updates for GitHub Actions dependencies while restricting non-GitHub-Actions dependencies to patch and minor updates. Updated corresponding workflows and policy documentation to reflect the ecosystem-aware eligibility logic.

Changes

Cohort / File(s)	Summary
Dependabot Auto-Merge Workflows .github/workflows/dependabot-automerge-reusable.yml, .github/workflows/dependabot-automerge.yml	Modified eligibility checks to exempt github-actions ecosystem from patch/minor/indirect restrictions, allowing major updates for GitHub Actions. Non-GitHub-Actions ecosystems remain restricted to patch/minor; major updates now explicitly noted as requiring human review via updated skip messages.
Policy Documentation standards/dependabot-policy.md	Updated auto-merge rules to document ecosystem-specific behavior: GitHub Actions eligible for all semver levels (including major), while app ecosystems limited to patch and minor updates with major changes requiring human review.

Estimated code review effort

🎯 2 (Simple) | ⏱️ ~12 minutes

Possibly related PRs

• PR #9 — Directly modifies the same Dependabot auto-merge eligibility logic and policy files with overlapping changes to workflow and documentation.
• PR #15 — Updates the dependabot-automerge workflow eligibility logic for which update types are auto-merged, targeting the same workflow file.
• PR #87 — Related to the dependabot-automerge reusable workflow modifications, modifying the same workflow infrastructure affected by these changes.

🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 3

✅ Passed checks (3 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Description Check	✅ Passed	Check skipped - CodeRabbit’s high-level summary is enabled.
Title check	✅ Passed	The title accurately summarizes the main change: enabling auto-merge for major GitHub Actions version updates, which is the core feature introduced across the workflows and documentation.
Docstring Coverage	✅ Passed	No functions found in the changed files to evaluate docstring coverage. Skipping docstring coverage check.

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✨ Finishing Touches

🧪 Generate unit tests (beta)

• Create PR with unit tests
• Commit unit tests in branch claude/kind-dijkstra

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[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Enables Dependabot auto-merge for major updates in the github-actions ecosystem (while keeping non-Actions major updates blocked for human review), and updates the Dependabot policy documentation to reflect the new eligibility rules.

Changes:

• Updated eligibility gating in .github/workflows/dependabot-automerge.yml to allow all github-actions version bumps (including major).
• Updated the same gating logic in .github/workflows/dependabot-automerge-reusable.yml.
• Documented the Actions-vs-app-ecosystem auto-merge distinction in standards/dependabot-policy.md.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 3 out of 3 changed files in this pull request and generated 1 comment.

File	Description
standards/dependabot-policy.md	Updates policy text to describe major auto-merge behavior for GitHub Actions.
.github/workflows/dependabot-automerge.yml	Adjusts eligibility condition to bypass the major-version gate for github-actions.
.github/workflows/dependabot-automerge-reusable.yml	Mirrors the eligibility change in the reusable workflow used org-wide.

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[sonarqubecloud]

Quality Gate passed

Issues
0 New issues
0 Accepted issues

Measures
0 Security Hotspots
0.0% Coverage on New Code
0.0% Duplication on New Code

See analysis details on SonarQube Cloud