Changelog Automation

Generate changelogs from commit history and manage releases.

Conventional Commits Format

<type>[optional scope]: <description>

feat: add user registration
fix: resolve login timeout
docs: update API documentation
refactor: simplify auth middleware
test: add unit tests for payments
chore: update dependencies
perf: optimize database queries
breaking: remove deprecated v1 endpoints

Generate Changelog from Git

Simple git log approach

# Changelog since last tag
git log $(git describe --tags --abbrev=0)..HEAD --pretty=format:"- %s (%h)" --no-merges

# Grouped by type (conventional commits)
echo "## Features"
git log $(git describe --tags --abbrev=0)..HEAD --pretty=format:"- %s (%h)" --no-merges | grep "^- feat"
echo ""
echo "## Bug Fixes"
git log $(git describe --tags --abbrev=0)..HEAD --pretty=format:"- %s (%h)" --no-merges | grep "^- fix"
echo ""
echo "## Other"
git log $(git describe --tags --abbrev=0)..HEAD --pretty=format:"- %s (%h)" --no-merges | grep -v "^- feat\|^- fix"

Between two tags

git log v1.0.0..v2.0.0 --pretty=format:"- %s (%an, %h)" --no-merges

git-cliff (Rust-based changelog generator)

# Generate full changelog
git-cliff -o CHANGELOG.md

# Since last tag
git-cliff --latest -o CHANGELOG.md

# Specific range
git-cliff v1.0.0..v2.0.0

# Prepend to existing changelog
git-cliff --latest --prepend CHANGELOG.md

# Custom template
git-cliff --config cliff.toml -o CHANGELOG.md

GitHub Releases

# Create release with auto-generated notes
gh release create v2.0.0 --generate-notes

# Create release with custom notes
gh release create v2.0.0 --title "v2.0.0" --notes "$(git-cliff --latest --strip all)"

# Create draft release
gh release create v2.0.0 --draft --generate-notes

# Create pre-release
gh release create v2.0.0-rc1 --prerelease --generate-notes

# List recent releases
gh release list --limit 5

# View release notes
gh release view v2.0.0

PR-Based Changelog

# List merged PRs since last release
gh pr list --state merged --base main --json number,title,labels,mergedAt \
  --jq '.[] | "- #\(.number) \(.title)"' | head -30

# Grouped by label
echo "## Features"
gh pr list --state merged --base main --label "feature" --json number,title \
  --jq '.[] | "- #\(.number) \(.title)"'
echo ""
echo "## Bug Fixes"
gh pr list --state merged --base main --label "bug" --json number,title \
  --jq '.[] | "- #\(.number) \(.title)"'

Notes

• Conventional commits make automation reliable. Enforce with commitlint in CI.
• git-cliff is the most flexible tool. Install: cargo install git-cliff or brew install git-cliff.
• GitHub's --generate-notes uses PR titles and labels — keep PRs well-titled.
• Tag releases consistently: v1.0.0, v1.1.0, v2.0.0 (semver).
• Draft releases let you review notes before publishing.