Changelog Generator

Tier: POWERFUL
Category: Engineering
Domain: Release Management / Documentation

Overview

Use this skill to produce consistent, auditable release notes from Conventional Commits. It separates commit parsing, semantic bump logic, and changelog rendering so teams can automate releases without losing editorial control.

Core Capabilities

• Parse commit messages using Conventional Commit rules
• Detect semantic bump (major, minor, patch) from commit stream
• Render Keep a Changelog sections (Added, Changed, Fixed, etc.)
• Generate release entries from git ranges or provided commit input
• Enforce commit format with a dedicated linter script
• Support CI integration via machine-readable JSON output

When to Use

• Before publishing a release tag
• During CI to generate release notes automatically
• During PR checks to block invalid commit message formats
• In monorepos where package changelogs require scoped filtering
• When converting raw git history into user-facing notes

Key Workflows

1. Generate Changelog Entry From Git

python3 scripts/generate_changelog.py \
  --from-tag v1.3.0 \
  --to-tag v1.4.0 \
  --next-version v1.4.0 \
  --format markdown

2. Generate Entry From stdin/File Input

git log v1.3.0..v1.4.0 --pretty=format:'%s' | \
  python3 scripts/generate_changelog.py --next-version v1.4.0 --format markdown

python3 scripts/generate_changelog.py --input commits.txt --next-version v1.4.0 --format json

3. Update CHANGELOG.md

python3 scripts/generate_changelog.py \
  --from-tag v1.3.0 \
  --to-tag HEAD \
  --next-version v1.4.0 \
  --write CHANGELOG.md