Add Mercurial (Hg) VCS Support for Heptapod Integration

[qraynaud]

Mercurial (Hg) VCS Support

Overview

I've developed a fork of Renovate that adds support for Mercurial (Hg) repositories, specifically designed for Heptapod platforms. Heptapod is a GitLab instance that supports both Git and Mercurial repositories, providing GitLab's interface and features with dual VCS support.

What I've Implemented

Core Features

• Dual VCS Support: Works with both Git and Mercurial repositories
• Platform-based VCS Detection: VCS type is determined by the platform implementation
• Heptapod Platform Integration: Only the Heptapod platform supports Mercurial repositories
• Seamless Integration: Drop-in replacement for standard Renovate

Project Information

The complete implementation is available in my fork:

• Repository: https://heptapod.lsystems.fr/lsystems/renovate-heptapod
• Branch: backup/mercurial-implementation
• Docker Registry: https://heptapod.lsystems.fr/lsystems/renovate-heptapod/container_registry
• Documentation: Comprehensive README with usage examples and requirements

Questions for the Renovate Team

1. Interest in Integration: Would the Renovate team be interested in merging this Mercurial support into the main repository?

And if so:

2. Architecture Feedback: What are your thoughts on the VCS routing approach? Any suggestions for improvement?

Benefits

• Broader Platform Support: Enables Renovate to work with Mercurial-based GitLab instances (and other platform if that have hg support)
• Minimal Impact: Clean separation of Git and Mercurial logic with no breaking changes (at least I don’t think they are any)
• "Production Ready": I’m already using it myself. I did not write any test nor ran the existing ones for now, it just works for me

Next Steps

I'm happy to:

• Discuss the implementation approach
• Address any concerns or feedback
• Collaborate on integration strategy
• Provide additional documentation or examples

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this feature and whether it aligns with Renovate's roadmap!

[gracinet]

Hi, Heptapod maintainer here. Of course I'm interested.

I haven't looked deeply into it at this point, but I expect the GitLab API changes to be very minimal (potentially none if all that's involved is creating a MR).

[qraynaud]

Yes. I didn't need to make a single modification to that part of the code to make it work. I'm just reading the VCS type from the API to clone the repository with the correct tool. I can't pay for heptapod but I'm happy to contribute this to the community. You can look at the code and you're even welcome to use my built image on my heptapod instance. I've been using my port since a few months now and I've since then fixed most of the edge cases that remained. I'm sure there are some left but I didn't stumble upon them yet!
If you want we can also move this repository to Foss.heptapod.net.

[gracinet]

I'll look into it, yes. For the record, GitLab use RenovateBot themselves.

[qraynaud]

I hope my fork can be integrated upstream since it would be easier for everyone but the interest seems minimal sadly.