Dependabot does not update dependencies in nested tests/e2e module, causing make check failures

[rajathagasthya]

Problem

The nested tests/e2e Go module references the main github.com/NVIDIA/gpu-operator module via a relative replace directive. As a result, when Dependabot updates dependencies in the top-level module (such as k8s.io/*), the nested module can end up with stale dependencies. This is because Dependabot does not automatically apply updates to all Go modules in the repository.

Impact:

• Running make check fails after a Dependabot PR because it triggers go -C tests/e2e mod tidy, resulting in uncommitted changes to tests/e2e/go.mod and go.sum.
• This was seen in Bump the k8sio group with 4 updates #1979 (see workflow failure). The issue had to be fixed manually in this commit.

Solution needed

• Either a Dependabot configuration that updates all modules (including tests/e2e) when dependencies change, OR
• An extra CI step that runs go mod tidy on all modules (including nested ones) and commits any changes automatically.