Git Changelog Generation

Automatically analyze git commit history and generate comprehensive changelogs following industry-standard formats.

Auto-Invoke Triggers

This skill automatically activates when:

• Editing changelog files: CHANGELOG.md , CHANGELOG.txt , HISTORY.md

• Mentioning keywords: "changelog", "release notes", "version", "semantic versioning"

• Git tagging operations: Creating or discussing version tags

• Release preparation: Discussing release preparation or deployment

What This Skill Delivers

When invoked, this skill provides:

1. Git History Analysis Report

• Commit range analysis (since last tag or specified range)

• Commit categorization by type (feat, fix, docs, etc.)

• Semantic version bump recommendation (MAJOR, MINOR, PATCH)

• Breaking changes detection

• Author and PR number extraction

2. Formatted Changelog

Choose from multiple formats:

• Keep a Changelog (default) - Industry standard, human-friendly

• Conventional - Follows Conventional Commits specification

• GitHub - GitHub-style release notes with PR links

3. Update Strategy

• Append to existing CHANGELOG.md (preserves history)

• Overwrite with fresh changelog

• Create new version section

• Merge with existing sections

Common Use Cases

Project Types

• Microservices: Track changes across multiple services

• Frontend Applications: UI updates and features

• API Development: REST API versioning and breaking changes

• Infrastructure: Deployment, CI/CD, DevOps updates

• Documentation: Technical docs, API docs, guides

Conventional Commit Examples

The skill recognizes standard commit conventions:

feat: add new authentication endpoint fix: resolve token expiration issue docs: update API documentation refactor: optimize database queries perf: improve calculation performance test: add integration tests build: upgrade framework version ci: configure automated testing chore: update dependencies

Monorepo Support

The skill handles monorepo structures:

• Service-specific changelogs (e.g., services/api/CHANGELOG.md )

• Frontend changelog (frontend/CHANGELOG.md )

• Root changelog (project-wide changes)

Technical Features

Conventional Commits Support

Automatically categorizes commits by type:

• feat: → Features section

• fix: → Bug Fixes section

• docs: → Documentation section

• style: → Code Style section

• refactor: → Refactoring section

• perf: → Performance section

• test: → Testing section

• build: → Build System section

• ci: → CI/CD section

• chore: → Other Changes section

Semantic Versioning Detection

Automatically suggests version bumps:

• MAJOR (x.0.0): Contains BREAKING CHANGE: or exclamation mark suffix

• MINOR (0.x.0): Contains feat: commits

• PATCH (0.0.x): Contains only fix: commits

Breaking Changes Detection

Identifies breaking changes from:

• BREAKING CHANGE: footer in commit message

• Exclamation mark after commit type (example: feat!: or fix!:)

• Manual annotation in commit body

GitHub Integration

Extracts from commit messages:

• Pull request numbers (#123)

• Issue references (#456)

• Author information

• Commit SHAs

Output Example

Changelog

All notable changes to this project will be documented in this file.

The format is based on Keep a Changelog, and this project adheres to Semantic Versioning.

[1.2.0] - 2025-10-22

Added

• Keyword competition scoring algorithm for market analysis (#123)
• Multi-currency support for revenue calculations (#124)
• OpenSearch faceted search with Valkey caching (#125)

Fixed

• JWT token expiration issue in user-service (#126)
• Race condition in favorite-service list operations (#127)
• Memory leak in trend-service ARIMA calculations (#128)

Changed

• Upgraded Spring Boot to 3.4.3 across all services (#129)
• Optimized search-service query performance (40% improvement) (#130)
• Refactored supply-analytics-service ETL pipeline (#131)

Security

• Updated Jackson to fix CVE-2025-12345 (#132)

Performance

• Reduced trend-service calculation time from 2.5s to 0.8s (#133)

[1.1.0] - 2025-09-15

...

Progressive Disclosure

This is Level 1 documentation (skill overview).

For more details, see:

• Level 2: WORKFLOW.md

• Step-by-step methodology

• Level 3: EXAMPLES.md

• Real-world usage examples

• Level 4: TROUBLESHOOTING.md

• Common issues and solutions

Usage

Via Command

/changelog /changelog --since v1.1.0 --version 1.2.0 /changelog --format github --append

Auto-Invoke

The skill activates automatically when:

Editing changelog

vim CHANGELOG.md

Discussing releases

"I need to prepare release notes for version 1.2.0"

Git tagging

"Let's create a changelog for the v1.2.0 tag"

Integration with Development Workflow

Pre-Release Workflow

• Developer: git tag v1.2.0-rc1

• Skill auto-invokes: Analyzes commits since v1.1.0

• Skill generates: Draft changelog with categorized changes

• Developer reviews: Edits descriptions, adds context

• Developer: /changelog --append --version 1.2.0

• Skill updates: CHANGELOG.md with final content

• Developer commits: Changelog as part of release

Service-Specific Releases

Generate changelog for specific service

cd services/api /changelog --output CHANGELOG.md --since v1.0.0

Monorepo Root Changelog

Generate project-wide changelog

/changelog --output CHANGELOG.md --format keepachangelog

Quality Standards

• Conventional Commits: 100% recognition of conventional commit format

• Semantic Versioning: Automatic MAJOR/MINOR/PATCH detection

• Breaking Changes: Clear highlighting of breaking changes

• PR Linking: Automatic GitHub PR number extraction

• Date Formatting: ISO 8601 dates (YYYY-MM-DD)

• Markdown Formatting: Valid markdown with proper headers

• No Claude Code Footer: Never include Claude Code attribution in changelog entries unless explicitly requested by user

See Also

• doc-coauthoring skill - Collaborative documentation workflow

• /code-explain

• Explain complex code sections

• diagramming skill or /diagram command - Generate diagrams (e.g., release flow diagrams)

Version

1.0.0