Renovate fails to read the devcontrainer template json file

[zisuu]

How are you running Renovate?

Self-hosted Renovate

If you're self-hosting Renovate, tell us which platform (GitHub, GitLab, etc) and which version of Renovate.

GitHub, Renovate 39

Please tell us more about your question or problem

I have a GitHub Repo where we host our own internal devcontainer templates. The template looks like this:
src/java/.devcontainer/devcontainer.json:

// For format details, see https://aka.ms/devcontainer.json. For config options, see the
// README at: https://github.com/xx/xx-devcontainer-templates/tree/main/src/java
{
  "name": "java-devcontainer",
  // Need to use the "build" option with the "args" instead of the "image" parameter if you work with devcontainer cli
  // or devcontainer ci because the devcontainer.json env vars are not passed to the docker build command,
  // see https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-remote-release/issues/6464
  // and https://github.com/devcontainers/cli/issues/927
  "build": {
    "dockerfile": "Dockerfile",
    "context": ".",
    "args": {
      "http_proxy": "${localEnv:http_proxy}",
      "https_proxy": "${localEnv:https_proxy}",
      "no_proxy": "${localEnv:no_proxy}"
    },
  },
  "runArgs": [
    "--add-host=host.docker.internal:host-gateway",
    // the proxy vars must be set here, otherwise IntelliJ does not work
    "-e", "http_proxy=${localEnv:http_proxy}",
    "-e", "https_proxy=${localEnv:https_proxy}",
    "-e", "no_proxy=${localEnv:no_proxy}"
  ],
  "containerEnv": {
    "TESTCONTAINERS_HOST_OVERRIDE": "host.docker.internal",
    "NODE_OPTIONS": "--use-openssl-ca --max-old-space-size=8192",
    "NODE_EXTRA_CA_CERTS": "/etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt",
    "CHROME_BIN": "/usr/local/bin/chrome",
    "http_proxy": "${localEnv:http_proxy}",
    "https_proxy": "${localEnv:https_proxy}",
    "no_proxy": "${localEnv:no_proxy}"
  },

  // Features to add to the Dev Container. More info: https://github.com/xx/xx-devcontainer-features
  "features": {
    "test.com/devcontainer/features/common-utils:1.0.0": {},
    "test.com/devcontainer/features/sudo:1.0.0": {},
    "test.com/devcontainer/features/docker-out:1.0.0": {
      "version": "${templateOption:dockerVersion}",
      "useDefaultClientConfig": "${templateOption:useDefaultClientConfig}",
      "httpProxy": "${localEnv:http_proxy}",
      "httpsProxy": "${localEnv:https_proxy}",
      "noProxy": "${localEnv:no_proxy}"
    },
    "test.com/devcontainer/features/java:1.0.0": {
      "version": "${templateOption:javaVersion}",
      "patchKeystore": "${templateOption:patchKeystore}",
      "mavenVersion": "${templateOption:mavenVersion}"
    },
    "test.com/devcontainer/features/node:1.0.0": {
      "version": "${templateOption:nodeVersion}",
      "npmVersion": "${templateOption:npmVersion}"
    },
    "test.com/devcontainer/features/selenium-manager:1": {
      "tag": "latest",
      "browser": "${templateOption:browser}",
      "browserVersion": "${templateOption:browserVersion}",
    }
  },

  // Use 'forwardPorts' to make a list of ports inside the container available locally.
  // "forwardPorts": [],

  // Use 'postCreateCommand' to run commands after the container is created.
  // "postCreateCommand": "java -version",

  // Configure tool-specific properties.
  // "customizations": {},

  // Uncomment to connect as root instead. More info: https://aka.ms/dev-containers-non-root.
  // "remoteUser": "root"
}

Renovate fails to read/parse the json:

DEBUG: Error extracting dev container JSON file. (repository=xx/xxx-java-devcontainer-playground, packageFile=src/java/.devcontainer/devcontainer.json)
       "err": {
         "message": "Schema error",
         "stack": "ZodError: Schema error\n    at Object.get error [as error] (/usr/local/renovate/node_modules/.pnpm/[email protected]/node_modules/zod/lib/types.js:55:31)\n    at ZodPipeline.parse (/usr/local/renovate/node_modules/.pnpm/[email protected]/node_modules/zod/lib/types.js:131:22)\n    at Object.extractPackageFile (/usr/local/renovate/lib/modules/manager/devcontainer/extract.ts:17:35)\n    at extractPackageFile (/usr/local/renovate/lib/modules/manager/index.ts:75:9)\n    at getManagerPackageFiles (/usr/local/renovate/lib/workers/repository/extract/manager-files.ts:58:43)\n    at /usr/local/renovate/lib/workers/repository/extract/index.ts:57:28\n    at async Promise.all (index 0)\n    at extractAllDependencies (/usr/local/renovate/lib/workers/repository/extract/index.ts:54:26)\n    at extract (/usr/local/renovate/lib/workers/repository/process/extract-update.ts:160:28)\n    at extractDependencies (/usr/local/renovate/lib/workers/repository/process/index.ts:158:26)\n    at Object.renovateRepository (/usr/local/r
         "issues": "Invalid JSONC"
       }

Yes, this is not a valid JSON, but it is a common thing todo for devcontainer templates, see other examples here:
https://github.com/devcontainers/templates/blob/main/src/anaconda-postgres/.devcontainer/devcontainer.json
https://github.com/devcontainers/templates/blob/main/src/anaconda/.devcontainer/devcontainer.json
https://github.com/devcontainers/templates/blob/main/src/alpine/.devcontainer/devcontainer.json

is there any chance that we would tell Renovate that it should just ignore the json lines which start with //? Would be awesome if we could use Renovate to bump the features in the templates. Somehow Dependabot seems to be able todo so, even with this invalid JSON?

Logs (if relevant)

Logs

DEBUG: Error extracting dev container JSON file. (repository=xx/xxx-java-devcontainer-playground, packageFile=src/java/.devcontainer/devcontainer.json)
       "err": {
         "message": "Schema error",
         "stack": "ZodError: Schema error\n    at Object.get error [as error] (/usr/local/renovate/node_modules/.pnpm/[email protected]/node_modules/zod/lib/types.js:55:31)\n    at ZodPipeline.parse (/usr/local/renovate/node_modules/.pnpm/[email protected]/node_modules/zod/lib/types.js:131:22)\n    at Object.extractPackageFile (/usr/local/renovate/lib/modules/manager/devcontainer/extract.ts:17:35)\n    at extractPackageFile (/usr/local/renovate/lib/modules/manager/index.ts:75:9)\n    at getManagerPackageFiles (/usr/local/renovate/lib/workers/repository/extract/manager-files.ts:58:43)\n    at /usr/local/renovate/lib/workers/repository/extract/index.ts:57:28\n    at async Promise.all (index 0)\n    at extractAllDependencies (/usr/local/renovate/lib/workers/repository/extract/index.ts:54:26)\n    at extract (/usr/local/renovate/lib/workers/repository/process/extract-update.ts:160:28)\n    at extractDependencies (/usr/local/renovate/lib/workers/repository/process/index.ts:158:26)\n    at Object.renovateRepository (/usr/local/r
         "issues": "Invalid JSONC"
       }

[RahulGautamSingh]

The issues seem to be the trailing commas and not the comments.

[zisuu]

you are correct. There are trailing comma issues, sorry I posted an older version of the JSON; I fixed that already in my current JSON file, but Renovate is still not able to read/parse it. The issue is the comments (lines with //) which are JSONC standard, but not JSON conform. Sadly the devcontainer ecosystem seems to treat all their .json file with the JSONC standard: https://docs.github.com/en/codespaces/setting-up-your-project-for-codespaces/adding-a-dev-container-configuration/introduction-to-dev-containers#editing-the-devcontainerjson-file

If you use a linter to validate the devcontainer.json file, make sure it is set to JSONC and not JSON or comments will be reported as errors.

Renovate can update the file as soon as I rename the file extension from .json to .jsonc but this it brings to new issues:

1. all devcontainer tools expect the devcontainer.json file with .json ending and not .jsonc, so I'd need to explicitly overwrite the devcontainer filename everywhere in order to make this work
2. the devcontainer cli tool which generates new devcontainer.json configs from the devcontainer template does always write a devcontainer.json file, there is no way to tell this tool do make a devcontainer.jsonc file instead.

What I'd need is a way to tell Renovate to validate/read/parse all devcontainer.json files as JSONC and not JSON, that would be the best solution I think. I'd even say Renovate should threat all devcontainer.json files per default with JSONC, as Microsoft defined it here

[RahulGautamSingh]

I can look into it afteryou create a minimal reproduction.

[github-actions[bot]]

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[rarkins]

Looks like we need a JSONC parser instead - let's move to an issue once we have a suitable reproduction repo

[zisuu]

sorry, guys

It seems like it's all my own fault. It works once I REALLY fixed all my comma issues in the json file. I made a small reproduction setup and it works now there: https://github.com/zisuu/devcontainer-renovate/pull/1/files

So ignore me, I'll close this one. Sorry to waste you're time even looking at this :-( Thanks a lot for your efforts trying to help me anyway!!

[rarkins]

I just want to check: does devcontainer normally allow trailing commmas in JSON files, or not? There are some ecosystems such as VSCode where .json files may contain JSONC, and in such situations I'd still like to have an issue open for us to support that instead of enforcing pure JSON

[zisuu]

as far as I can tell VSCode did not care about my trailing commas, it worked to build and run the devcontainer with the trailing commas in the config. But Renovate does seem to care about them :-)