A Terraform block in dependabot.yml looks identical to an npm or uv one:

- package-ecosystem : terraform directory : /terraform/env schedule : interval : weekly

Enter fullscreen mode

Exit fullscreen mode

It behaves nothing like one. We rolled Dependabot out across a GCP monorepo — four deployable services, eight Terraform directories, a shared infra root — and the Terraform half cost more time than every other ecosystem combined. Here is what actually bit us, and what the fixes look like.

1. directory takes one literal path, so a monorepo means N copies of the same block

There is no globbing in the singular directory key. Our repo splits Terraform ownership: Cloud Run services and their observability live under each service's own terraform/ , while service accounts, IAM, shared VPC and Cloud SQL live in a root terraform/ .…