diff --git a/RELEASE_NOTES.md b/RELEASE_NOTES.md
index 4b34be7d..becf28c6 100644
--- a/RELEASE_NOTES.md
+++ b/RELEASE_NOTES.md
@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@
 
 ## Upgrading
 
-<!-- Here goes notes on how to upgrade from previous versions, including deprecations and what they should be replaced with -->
+- The `frequenz.repo.config.github.abort()` function now takes most arguments as keyword-only arguments.
 
 ### Cookiecutter template
 
diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
index ae473a38..a8d2a29c 100644
--- a/pyproject.toml
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -70,7 +70,7 @@ dev-flake8 = [
   "flake8 == 7.1.1",
   "flake8-docstrings == 1.7.0",
   "flake8-pyproject == 1.2.3",  # For reading the flake8 config from pyproject.toml
-  "pydoclint == 0.5.7",
+  "pydoclint == 0.5.9",
   "pydocstyle == 6.3.0",
 ]
 dev-formatting = ["black == 24.8.0", "isort == 5.13.2"]
@@ -80,8 +80,8 @@ dev-mkdocs = [
   "mike == 2.1.3",
   "mkdocs-gen-files == 0.5.0",
   "mkdocs-literate-nav == 0.6.1",
-  "mkdocs-macros-plugin == 1.0.5",
-  "mkdocs-material == 9.5.34",
+  "mkdocs-macros-plugin == 1.2.0",
+  "mkdocs-material == 9.5.39",
   "mkdocstrings[python] == 0.26.1",
   "mkdocstrings-python == 1.11.1",
 ]
@@ -104,7 +104,7 @@ dev-pylint = [
 ]
 dev-pytest = [
   "pytest == 8.3.3",
-  "pylint == 3.2.7",       # We need this to check for the examples
+  "pylint == 3.3.1",       # We need this to check for the examples
   "cookiecutter == 2.6.0", # For checking the cookiecutter scripts
   "jinja2 == 3.1.4",       # For checking the cookiecutter scripts
   "sybil >= 6.1.1, < 7",   # Should be consistent with the extra-lint-examples dependency
diff --git a/src/frequenz/repo/config/github.py b/src/frequenz/repo/config/github.py
index bf1dd6dc..1e7754cb 100644
--- a/src/frequenz/repo/config/github.py
+++ b/src/frequenz/repo/config/github.py
@@ -56,6 +56,7 @@ def format(self, record: logging.LogRecord) -> str:
 
 def abort(  # pylint: disable=too-many-arguments
     message: str,
+    *,
     title: str | None = None,
     file: str | None = None,
     col: int | None = None,