"FATAL: You must configure a GitHub token"

I'm trying to install renovate on a self-hosted GitLab instance. I installed renovate to my Node.js project via the following command: npm install renovate@latest

Then I created a renovate.json file and inserted the following configuration:

{
    "token": "my-gitlab-token",
    "platform": "gitlab",
    "gitlabHost": "https://my-self-hosted-gitlab.com",
    "onboarding": true,
    "baseBranches": ["master"],
    "automerge": false,
    "packageRules": [
        {
        "packageNames": ["*"],
        "automerge": false
        }
    ]
}

Then when I try to run renovate via the following command: npx renovate I get this error:

FATAL: You must configure a GitHub token
 INFO: Renovate is exiting with a non-zero code due to the following logged errors
       "loggerErrors": [
         {
           "name": "renovate",
           "level": 60,
           "logContext": "QEWpdMHBUx3OqqQYbsThL",
           "msg": "You must configure a GitHub token"
         }
       ]

I tried to run npx renovate init but it get the same error. I also tried to create a .renovaterc.json file that contains the same configuration. Same error.

I don't understand why renovate does not find my config file. And why renovate thinks I'm using github even though I'm using gitlab. I run the command in the same path as my config file is located. And when I try to add the flag --config to my command, renovate returns: error: unknown option '--config'

Solution

According to this documentation: https://github.com/renovatebot/renovate/blob/main/docs/usage/getting-started/running.md#global-config

By default Renovate checks if a file named config.js is present. Any other (*.js, *.json, *.json5, *.yaml or *.yml) file is supported, when you reference it with the RENOVATE_CONFIG_FILE environment variable

If the configuration file is not named config.js and present in the current directory, you need to give the configuration file location via the RENOVATE_CONFIG_FILE environment variable.

You can then launch renovate like this:

RENOVATE_CONFIG_FILE=renovate.json npx renovate