Changelog Generator

This skill transforms technical git commits into polished, user-friendly changelogs that your customers and users will actually understand and appreciate.

When to Use This Skill

• Preparing release notes for a new version

• Creating weekly or monthly product update summaries

• Documenting changes for customers

• Writing changelog entries for app store submissions

• Generating update notifications

• Creating internal release documentation

• Maintaining a public changelog/product updates page

What This Skill Does

• Scans Git History: Analyzes commits from a specific time period or between versions

• Categorizes Changes: Groups commits into logical categories (features, improvements, bug fixes, breaking changes, security)

• Translates Technical to User-Friendly: Converts developer commits into customer language

• Formats Professionally: Creates clean, structured changelog entries

• Filters Noise: Excludes internal commits (refactoring, tests, etc.)

• Follows Best Practices: Applies changelog guidelines and your brand voice

How to Use

Basic Usage

From your project repository:

Create a changelog from commits since last release

Generate changelog for all commits from the past week

Create release notes for version 2.5.0

With Specific Date Range

Create a changelog for all commits between March 1 and March 15

With Custom Guidelines

Create a changelog for commits since v2.4.0, using my changelog guidelines from CHANGELOG_STYLE.md

Instructions

When a user requests a changelog:

Step 1: Gather Commit History

Get commits since last tag

git log $(git describe --tags --abbrev=0)..HEAD --oneline

Get commits from specific date range

git log --since="2024-01-01" --until="2024-01-31" --oneline

Get commits between two tags

git log v2.4.0..v2.5.0 --oneline

Step 2: Categorize Commits

Group commits into these categories:

Category Prefix Indicators Icon

New Features feat:, feature:, add: ✨

Improvements improve:, enhance:, update:, perf: 🔧

Bug Fixes fix:, bugfix:, hotfix: 🐛

Breaking Changes BREAKING:, breaking: ⚠️

Security security:, sec: 🔒

Documentation docs:, doc: 📚

Step 3: Filter Out Internal Changes

Exclude these commit types from user-facing changelogs:

• refactor:, refactoring

• test:, tests:

• chore:

• ci:, build:

• style: (formatting only)

• wip:, WIP

Step 4: Transform to User-Friendly Language

Before (Technical):

feat(auth): implement JWT refresh token rotation with sliding window fix(api): resolve race condition in concurrent request handler perf(db): add composite index on users table for search queries

After (User-Friendly):

✨ New Features

• Stay logged in longer! Your session now automatically refreshes

🐛 Fixes

• Fixed an issue where simultaneous actions could cause errors

🔧 Improvements

• User search is now significantly faster

Step 5: Format the Changelog

Updates - [Version/Date]

✨ New Features

• [Feature Name]: [One sentence description of what users can now do]

🔧 Improvements

• [Area]: [How the user experience is better]

🐛 Fixes

• Fixed [user-facing issue description]

⚠️ Breaking Changes (if any)

• [What changed and what users need to do]

Example

Input: "Create a changelog for commits from the past 7 days"

Output:

Updates - Week of March 10, 2024

✨ New Features

• Team Workspaces: Create separate workspaces for different projects. Invite team members and keep everything organized.

• Keyboard Shortcuts: Press ? to see all available shortcuts. Navigate faster without touching your mouse.

🔧 Improvements

• Faster Sync: Files now sync 2x faster across devices
• Better Search: Search now includes file contents, not just titles

🐛 Fixes

• Fixed issue where large images wouldn't upload
• Resolved timezone confusion in scheduled posts
• Corrected notification badge count

Tips

• Run from your git repository root

• Specify date ranges for focused changelogs

• Use a CHANGELOG_STYLE.md for consistent formatting

• Review and adjust the generated changelog before publishing

• Save output directly to CHANGELOG.md

Related Use Cases

• Creating GitHub release notes

• Writing app store update descriptions

• Generating email updates for users

• Creating social media announcement posts

WITH MCP Tools

If you have MCP tools available, the process is faster:

"Generate changelog from last week's commits using review_file for analysis"

WITHOUT MCP Tools

Use standard git commands:

View recent commits

git log --oneline -50

View commits since tag

git log v1.0.0..HEAD --pretty=format:"%s"

View commits by author

git log --author="name" --since="1 week ago"