Automated Dependency Management: Why Leading Engineering Organizations Are Embracing It

Every hour your team spends wrangling outdated dependencies or patching vulnerabilities is an hour they're not building features or innovating. For engineering leaders, this isn't just a productivity problem, it's a bottleneck for growth. Highly efficient engineering organizations are automating software dependency management processes to save time and money, and most importantly reducing risks from vulnerabilities and supply chain attacks. External application dependencies play a critical role in today's software ecosystem. By automating these processes, teams are free to focus on higher value tasks, while maintaining a secure and resilient codebase.

Key Challenges of Manual Dependency Management

Manual software dependency management can introduce hidden costs that compound over time. The largest contributor of this cost is active projects falling behind on updating dependencies. In this scenario the software is static, bug fixes are never received, and the software grows increasingly difficult to upgrade to the latest dependency releases.

Security Vulnerabilities

Security vulnerabilities should be everyone’s top concern when evaluating external dependencies. When updates are handled manually, there’s often a delay between the discovery of a vulnerability and its resolution within the application, leaving systems exposed. Threat actors are quick to exploit known vulnerabilities, and each day an outdated dependency remains unpatched, the risk of an exploit grows. For teams relying on manual processes, staying ahead of every new security advisory or CVE notification becomes an overwhelming task. In many cases, the lack of real-time monitoring or the time-consuming nature of manual updates can lead to overlooked or delayed patches, creating an avoidable security risk.

Manual dependency updates also increase the risk of introducing security gaps when dependencies go unpatched due to time constraints or human error. Developers manually managing dependencies may deprioritize security updates in favor of urgent feature development, accumulating a backlog of security fixes. Furthermore, dependencies are often interconnected, creating complex chains where a vulnerability in a sub-dependency can go unnoticed. Without automation, identifying and addressing these deeper, indirect vulnerabilities can be time-intensive and error-prone, leading to significant security debt over time.

Developer Productivity

In today’s software, which utilizes rapidly evolving open source projects, software dependencies quickly become outdated as the community constantly improves and refines popular libraries. Without automation, teams often struggle to keep up, or they deprioritize maintenance in favor of feature development, leading to technical debt and future compatibility issues. Manually updating dependencies is time-consuming, pulling developers away from valuable work and impacting product development velocity. The process can be repetitive, forcing developers to reallocate time for every update cycle and slowing down development cycles overall.

Implementing Automated Dependency Management

Automation Tools

Github’s Dependabot and Mend Renovate are two dependency upgrade tools widely used at the time of writing this. Both generate PRs, follow user configurable rules, and include changelog and release notes in the PR descriptions. Dependabot is for use with Github only. Renovate provides direct integration with Gitlab, Github, and Bitbucket, as well as offers solutions for a variety of other platforms, such as Azure DevOps.

Semantic Versioning and Changelogs

All your dependencies should use strict semantic versioning to specify which type of update (e.g., minor, patch, or major) it is. Some dependency authors take a lax approach to this when publishing packages, which can lead to unexpected breaking changes in dependent projects when packages are updated, creating a risk for unanticipated bugs or compatibility issues. Maintaining strict semantic versioning and detailed changelogs can help mitigate these risks by clearly communicating the nature of each update.

A well-maintained changelog, aligned with version updates, allows developers to quickly assess the impact of a new version and identify any breaking changes, enhancements, or bug fixes. This documentation is particularly valuable when dependencies are widely used across multiple projects, as it minimizes the guesswork and reduces time spent debugging unexpected issues. Adopting this discipline across all dependencies, internal and external to your organization, ensures that updates are predictable, manageable, and transparent, supporting smoother development workflows and greater reliability.

Automated Tests and Other Pipeline Processes

When dependency update PRs roll in, you want automated testing to be robust enough to catch any errors due to dependency changes. Other CI/CD process, like security scans and deploy previews, should pass before merging dependency upgrades.

Update Schedule and Rules Configuration

Establish a cadence for dependency upgrades that is manageable for your team. With most dependency management tools, you can create specific groupings and time schedules. When confident enough in your automated testing and semantic versioning, you may choose to automerge minor updates. It’s best to manually review major updates.

# Example dependabot config
version: 2
updates:
  # Core App Dependencies
  - package-ecosystem: "npm"
    directory: "/"
    schedule:
      interval: "monthly"
      day: "monday"
    labels:
      - "core dependencies"
    commit-message:
      prefix: "chore(deps)"
    groups:
      core-dependencies:
        patterns:
          - "react"
          - "react-dom"
          - "next"
    automerge: true
    automerge-type: "minor" # Auto-merge patch and minor updates if CI/CD passes

  # Testing Tools
  - package-ecosystem: "npm"
    directory: "/"
    schedule:
      interval: "monthly"
      day: "wednesday"
    labels:
      - "testing dependencies"
    commit-message:
      prefix: "chore(deps-testing)"
    groups:
      testing-tools:
        patterns:
          - "jest"
          - "@testing-library/*"
    automerge: true
    automerge-type: "minor"

  # Security Patches (high priority)
  - package-ecosystem: "npm"
    directory: "/"
    schedule:
      interval: "daily"
    labels:
      - "security"
    commit-message:
      prefix: "fix(security)"
    allow:
      - dependency-type: "direct"
      - dependency-type: "indirect"
    open-pull-requests-limit: 5
    automerge: true
    automerge-type: "minor"

  # Catch-All for Any Other Dependencies
  - package-ecosystem: "npm"
    directory: "/"
    schedule:
      interval: "monthly"
      day: "monday"
    labels:
      - "misc dependencies"
    commit-message:
      prefix: "chore(deps)"
    automerge: true
    automerge-type: "minor"

# Rules for Major Version Updates
# Only allow merging with PR review for major updates.
pull_request_rules:
  - name: "Require review for major updates"
    conditions:
      dependency-type: "direct"
      update-type: "version-update:semver-major"
    reviewers:
      - "dev-team"
    require-review: true
    require-review-count: 1
    automerge: false

Rollback Planning

Always have a strategy for rolling back dependency updates if an issue arises, particularly for mission-critical applications. This requires robust version control practices and clear documentation. It's important to test rollback procedures periodically to ensure they work smoothly in real world scenarios.

When You Shouldn’t Automate Dependency Updates

Automating dependency updates saves time, ensures security patches are applied, and keeps applications compatible with the latest tools. For most projects, tools like Dependabot or Renovate streamline this process, letting teams focus on core development without the distraction of manual updates.

Automation may not be ideal for applications with specialized dependencies or strict regulatory needs, like in finance or healthcare, where each update might require extensive testing. In these cases, a manual approach lets teams ensure compliance and stability. Projects with complex legacy code may also need selective updates to avoid compatibility issues.

The Strategic Advantage for Technical Leaders

Businesses, especially software engineering organizations, want to automate any laborious process that takes time away from important product development. This automation typically comes at little cost, while delivering tremendous value to the maintainability of the software. By automating tasks like dependency management and CI/CD workflows, organizations can free up engineering teams to focus on higher-value work, such as creating new features or improving performance, rather than spending time on routine maintenance.

At Nearform, we make automation a core part of our approach, regularly building automated dependency upgrades into CI/CD workflows. This ensures your systems stay secure, up-to-date, and reliable, with minimal manual intervention. For technical leaders, this means faster release cycles, reduced risk of human error, and greater confidence in the stability of your applications. With Nearform’s expertise, your organization can remain agile and competitive, empowering your engineers to focus on what truly drives business growth.

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Read More

• Nearform: Why and how to automate dependency bumps
• Nearform: Automating Dependabot with our GitHub app
• Github: Dependabot
• Mend - Renovate