From e9db7af57e4f4356652d7c1c5688eca5f7e26655 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: nbossard <nicolasbossard@hotmail.com>
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2023 07:09:17 +0000
Subject: [PATCH] docs: document the dry run behavior

---
 README.md | 17 ++++++++++++++++-
 1 file changed, 16 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 0b23017..1392bcb 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -35,5 +35,20 @@ configure the bot accordingly. Pay attention to the following:
   to `gitlab` in your configuration.
 * [GitLab platform integration](https://docs.renovatebot.com/modules/platform/gitlab/) requires that you
   declare a `RENOVATE_TOKEN` variable with an access token.
-* You'll also probaly need to declare a `GITHUB_COM_TOKEN` variable, holding a GitHub access token 
+* You'll also probaly need to declare a `GITHUB_COM_TOKEN` variable, holding a GitHub access token
   (for [fetching changelogs](https://docs.renovatebot.com/getting-started/running/#githubcom-token-for-changelogs))
+
+### Dry-run implementation details
+
+Depending on the source of a pipeline, the template will either perform your dependency updates (create/update/delete branches and MRs)
+or [perform a dry run](https://docs.renovatebot.com/self-hosted-configuration/#dryrun) (to preview the behavior of Renovate with logs, without making any changes to your repositories).
+
+The real dependency updates is triggered only when:
+
+- the pipeline is started from the **web interface** (menu _Build > Pipelines_, click _Run pipeline_),
+- or the pipeline is started from a **scheduled run** (menu _Build > Pipeline schedules_).
+
+In any other case (regular Git commit or else) the template will perform a dry run.
+
+:warning: Dry-run behavior is enabled/disabled with the `RENOVATE_DRY_RUN` environment variable. 
+Please don't try to override it or you might break the default template implementation.
-- 
GitLab