Where is the dependabot.yml file located in a repository?

The configuration file must live at a specific, fixed path within the repository: .github/dependabot.yml — the same .github directory GitHub uses for other repository-level configuration like issue templates and GitHub Actions workflows.

my-repo/
├── .github/
│   ├── dependabot.yml
│   └── workflows/
├── src/
└── package.json

Placing it anywhere else, or misnaming it (like dependabot.yaml with a different extension, though GitHub does accept both .yml and .yaml), means GitHub simply won't recognize it as valid Dependabot configuration, and version updates won't activate — a common early troubleshooting step when Dependabot "isn't working" is confirming the file actually sits at this exact expected path.

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