Picture this: you're managing dependencies across 1,300+ repositories, security vulnerabilities pile up faster than dishes in a university dorm, and developers spend more time updating package.json than building features. That was us at Grafana Labs.
What started as "let's try this [Renovate](https://github.com/renovatebot/renovate) thing" became a full automation adventure. We built a self-hosted Renovate system with opt-in/opt-out flexibility, vulnerability scanning via [OSV](https://osv.dev/) integration, automatic digest pinning, and smart automerge rules that know when to trust a patch versus demand human review.
The real magic happened when we went meta: monitoring our dependency automation using [Grafana](https://github.com/grafana/grafana) dashboards with [Loki](https://github.com/grafana/loki) logs and [Infinity datasource](https://github.com/grafana/grafana-infinity-datasource). We can watch updates flow in real-time, spot bottlenecks, and prove to leadership that automation saves money.
We'll share real stories behind our metrics, spectacular failures that taught us about rate limiting, creative solutions for monorepo versioning nightmares, and how we convinced skeptical teams that automated dependencies wouldn't end in disaster. If you're wondering whether large-scale dependency automation is worth it, this talk provides the roadmap we wish we'd had.
