What is the difference between Dependabot's "patch", "minor", and "major" update strategies?

These terms describe the semver category of a specific proposed update, and Dependabot configuration lets you selectively allow or exclude proposals by category via the allow/ignore options — giving fine-grained control over which categories of update actually generate pull requests.

updates:
  - package-ecosystem: "npm"
    directory: "/"
    schedule:
      interval: "weekly"
    ignore:
      - dependency-name: "*"
        update-types: ["version-update:semver-major"]

The example above blocks all major-version-bump proposals across every dependency while still allowing patch and minor updates through, a common pattern for teams that want routine, lower-risk updates flowing automatically but want major version migrations handled as a deliberate, manually-initiated piece of work rather than an unplanned pull request appearing on its own schedule.

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