Add Renovate log selector in pkg/doctor (checks.go). Use when adding message-based pattern matching, log categorization, new Renovate msg patterns, or Issues dashboard findings from Renovate JSON logs.
Add Renovate log selector in pkg/doctor (checks.go). Use when adding message-based pattern matching, log categorization, new Renovate msg patterns, or Issues dashboard findings from Renovate JSON logs.
Add Renovate log selector
Guide for adding a message-based selector in pkg/doctor. Selectors feed SimpleReport and the mintmaker-custom Kite webhook. They are separate from level-based ERROR/FATAL handling (pipeline-failure).
Before you start
Get a real Renovate log line that should trigger the check either from the user or from analyzing a log file (if provided). When you do not have the whole json log, do not attempt to create a selector.
Confirm the exact msg substring Renovate emits (copy from JSON, do not guess).
Decide severity: report.Error, report.Warning, or report.Info.
How matching works
Registered in init() via registerSelector(substring, checkFunc) in pkg/doctor/checks.go.
On each parsed line, log_reader.go runs strings.Contains(entry.Msg, selector).
The selector string must appear verbatim as a substring of msg (not regex).
Selectors run on all log levels.
Implementation checklist
Copy an existing check in checks.go (prLimitReached, renovateConfigErrors, rawExecError, platformCommitError) and adapt.
1. Check function — func myCheck(line *LogEntry, report *SimpleReport) (use descriptive function name) in checks.go:
Read fields from line.Extras (and line.Msg if needed). Unknown JSON keys land in Extras after parseLogLine. Analyze the real json log and extract a useful fields based on that.
For long err.message strings, use extractUsefulErrorDefault(message) (see rawExecError).
Return early if required structured data is missing (see rawExecError, platformCommitError).
2. Register — In init(), add registerSelector("<exact substring from Renovate msg>", myCheck).
3. Test fixture — Append one minimal JSON line to pkg/doctor/testdata/test_logs.json (or a dedicated file under testdata/ if the line is huge). Requirements:
Valid NDJSON: one JSON object per line.
msg contains the registered selector substring.
Synthetic / anonymized only: no real tokens, cookies, passwords, or internal-only URLs. Use placeholders (example-org, example.com, **redacted**). gitleaks runs on pre-commit.
Mirror structure from neighboring lines in test_logs.json (level, branch, err, etc.).
4. Tests — Add table-driven *_test.go in pkg/doctor when behavior is non-trivial: run ProcessLogFile on a small fixture and assert SimpleReport slices. No live HTTP.
go fmt ./pkg/doctor/...
golangci-lint run ./pkg/doctor
make test
make run-dev LOG_FILE=./pkg/doctor/testdata/test_logs.json
Use go run ./cmd/log-analyzer/main.go --dev with the same env vars as make run-dev when you need custom GIT_HOST / REPOSITORY / BRANCH. With a mock Kite URL, parsing and --dev console output still work; webhook HTTP may fail (expected).
Report formatting
formatSimpleMessage builds strings from title + alternating key/value fields.
Message values are appended on a new line; other fields use | key: value.
Common mistakes
Wrong selector string — Must match Renovate msg, not log text inside err.message only.
Regex in selector — Not supported; use exact substring or handle parsing inside the check function.
Bloated fixtures — Do not paste full production stack traces; trim to fields your check reads.
Skipping docs — Selector list in docs/README.md must stay in sync.
Changing Kite payloads — Selector work stays in pkg/doctor. Webhook schema changes belong in pkg/kite/ and require alignment with the Kite backend.
References
Architecture and selector pattern: docs/README.md (Selector Pattern, Selector List, Local Testing).
