feat: mode=silent

[rarkins]

Changes

Adds a new config option "mode" with one new value: "silent".

Context

This is built with the Mend Renovate App in mind. I also planned to add "remediation" as another supported mode, but will do that later.

Closes #26724

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[secustor]

I don't like that we have multiple settings for such a modes.

What prevents us to migrate dryRun to such a mode first?

I would see the current dryRun implementation as mode: dryRun and then we can have a option like dryRunMode that would make it easier to understand IMO.

[rarkins]

I don't like that we have multiple settings for such a modes.

What prevents us to migrate dryRun to such a mode first?

I thought about it, but dryRun is tangental to this. dryRun means "make no changes, just tell me what you'd do". mode=silent and future mode=remediation both can make changes, and they are also both compatible with dryRun (e.g. you could test how mode=silent behaves if you supply checkedBranches as a param)

I would see the current dryRun implementation as mode: dryRun and then we can have a option like dryRunMode that would make it easier to understand IMO.

It's important to be able to combine the modes with dryRun, not make them exclusive like this. Plus you wouldn't save a config option either.

[secustor]

Hmm, than maybe should name it on-demand as you suggested in the issue. 🤔

As it is not really silent as it still uses checkedBranches.

[rarkins]

It's silent unless told otherwise. On-demand isn't perfect either because can be mixed up with the concept of Dependency Dashboard Approval.

[rarkins]

Unfortunately this mode still clones for non-onboarded repos each time (even with repo cache enabled) but that's something we can improve later

[nabeelsaabna]

LGTM
Note: any notifications we want to the user to know about will only appear in the UI (like deprecating encrypted token in the repository config)

[renovate-release]

🎉 This PR is included in version 37.344.0 🎉

The release is available on:

• GitHub release
• npm package (@latest dist-tag)
• 37.344.0

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