A housekeeping tool for dependency update PRs.
Automates the approve-and-merge workflow for
Renovate and
Dependabot
pull requests that request your review.
It searches GitHub for open bot PRs, groups them interactively, waits for CI checks to pass, approves, and merges them -- with a live terminal table showing progress.
Install
From GitHub releases
Download the latest binary from the releases page for your platform (Linux, macOS, Windows; amd64 and arm64).
From source
go install github.com/teemow/marge@latest
Or clone and build locally:
git clone https://github.com/teemow/marge.git
cd marge
make install
Setup
Marge requires a GitHub personal access token. Export it as an environment variable:
export GITHUB_TOKEN="ghp_..."
Classic token: needs the repo scope.
Fine-grained token: select the repositories you want marge to manage, then grant these permissions:
Permission
Access
Why
Pull requests
Read & write
Approve and merge PRs
Checks
Read
Wait for CI status
Commit statuses
Read
Read combined commit status
Metadata
Read
Required by default
Usage
marge [query] [flags] (default command)
When run without a query, marge enters interactive mode: it fetches all open bot PRs requesting your review and lets you pick a group to process.
When run with a query (e.g. a repo name or dependency), it filters PRs directly and processes them.
Flag
Short
Default
Description
--dry-run
false
Show what would be done without making changes
--watch
-w
false
Keep polling for new PRs every 60 seconds
--grouping
repo
Group by repo or dependency
--author
all
Filter by PR author: renovate, dependabot, or all
--org
Limit to repos owned by this org or user
--no-tui
false
Disable the live table; print plain-text results instead
--trusted-authors
renovate[bot],dependabot[bot]
Comma-separated list of trusted PR author logins
marge sweep [flags]
Processes all matching PRs without interactive grouping. After processing, prints an Action required section listing any PRs that failed, have conflicts, or came from untrusted authors.
Flag
Short
Default
Description
--dry-run
false
Show what would be done without making changes
--watch
-w
false
Keep polling for new PRs every 60 seconds
--author
all
Filter by PR author: renovate, dependabot, or all
--org
Limit to repos owned by this org or user
--no-tui
false
Disable the live table; print plain-text results instead
--merge-auto
false
Also merge PRs that have auto-merge enabled (by default these are skipped)
--trusted-authors
renovate[bot],dependabot[bot]
Comma-separated list of trusted PR author logins
Other commands
marge version # Print the current version
marge self-update # Update to the latest release
Examples
Process all bot PRs interactively, grouped by repository:
marge
Process only Renovate PRs:
marge --author renovate
Filter PRs matching a query and keep watching:
marge "my-org/my-repo" --watch
Dry run to preview what would happen:
marge --dry-run
Group by dependency instead of repository:
marge --grouping dependency
Sweep all PRs in a specific org:
marge sweep --org my-org
Sweep including PRs with auto-merge enabled:
marge sweep --merge-auto
How it works
Searches GitHub for open PRs authored by app/renovate or app/dependabot that are either requesting your review or in your own repositories. Self-authored dependency-update PRs (e.g. from self-hosted Renovate) in your repos are also included.
In interactive mode, groups results by repository (or dependency) and presents a selector.
Validates each PR's author against a trusted allow-list (renovate[bot], dependabot[bot], and the authenticated user by default). PRs from untrusted authors are refused with a clear status message. You can extend the allow-list with --trusted-authors.
For each selected PR, processes it in parallel (up to 5 concurrent):
Checks combined commit status and check runs; polls every 15 seconds for up to 5 minutes if pending.
Approves the PR if not already approved.
If auto-merge is enabled, lets the merge queue handle it (unless --merge-auto is set).
Otherwise merges via squash.
Displays a live-updating table with columns for repository, dependency, version, author, and status. Use --no-tui for plain-text output.
Development
make build # Build the binary
make test # Run tests
make lint # Run golangci-lint
make help # Show all available targets