Changelog automation

Skill Data-Wise/craft/skills/docs/changelog-automation

Automate changelog generation from commits, PRs, and releases following Keep a Changelog format. Use when setting up release workflows, generating release notes, or standardizing commit conventions.From its SKILL.md

Install

npx -y skills add Data-Wise/craft --skill changelog-automation

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One thing to look at

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SKILL.md

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Changelog Automation

Patterns and tools for automating changelog generation, release notes, and version management following industry standards.

When to Use This Skill

Setting up automated changelog generation
Implementing Conventional Commits
Creating release note workflows
Standardizing commit message formats
Generating GitHub/GitLab release notes
Managing semantic versioning

Core Concepts

1. Keep a Changelog Format

# Changelog

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

The format is based on [Keep a Changelog](https://keepachangelog.com/en/1.1.0/),
and this project adheres to [Semantic Versioning](https://semver.org/spec/v2.0.0.html).

## [Unreleased]

### Added
- New feature X

## [1.2.0] - 2024-01-15

### Added
- User profile avatars
- Dark mode support

### Changed
- Improved loading performance by 40%

### Deprecated
- Old authentication API (use v2)

### Removed
- Legacy payment gateway

### Fixed
- Login timeout issue (#123)

### Security
- Updated dependencies for CVE-2024-1234

[Unreleased]: https://github.com/user/repo/compare/v1.2.0...HEAD
[1.2.0]: https://github.com/user/repo/compare/v1.1.0...v1.2.0

2. Conventional Commits

<type>[optional scope]: <description>

[optional body]

[optional footer(s)]

Type	Description	Changelog Section
`feat`	New feature	Added
`fix`	Bug fix	Fixed
`docs`	Documentation	(usually excluded)
`style`	Formatting	(usually excluded)
`refactor`	Code restructure	Changed
`perf`	Performance	Changed
`test`	Tests	(usually excluded)
`chore`	Maintenance	(usually excluded)
`ci`	CI changes	(usually excluded)
`build`	Build system	(usually excluded)
`revert`	Revert commit	Removed

3. Semantic Versioning

MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH

MAJOR: Breaking changes (feat! or BREAKING CHANGE)
MINOR: New features (feat)
PATCH: Bug fixes (fix)

Implementation

Six methods are available depending on language and automation level. For full configuration details, see references/tool-configs.md.

Method	Stack	Best For
1. Conventional Changelog	Node.js (commitlint + husky)	Teams enforcing commit standards at the hook level
2. standard-version	Node.js	Semver bumping + changelog in one command
3. semantic-release	Node.js (fully automated)	CI-driven releases with zero manual steps
4. GitHub Actions	YAML workflow	Any stack — CI-native release pipelines
5. git-cliff	Rust (fast, template-based)	Custom changelog formats with Tera templates
6. commitizen	Python	Python projects needing interactive commit tooling

Quick start for the most common case (semantic-release in CI):

npm install -D semantic-release @semantic-release/changelog @semantic-release/git
npx semantic-release

See references/tool-configs.md for complete configs for all six methods.

Release Notes Templates

For GitHub Release and Internal Release Note templates, see references/templates-and-examples.md.

Commit Message Examples

For annotated examples covering scopes, issue references, breaking changes, and multi-paragraph bodies, see references/templates-and-examples.md.

Best Practices

Do's

Follow Conventional Commits - Enables automation
Write clear messages - Future you will thank you
Reference issues - Link commits to tickets
Use scopes consistently - Define team conventions
Automate releases - Reduce manual errors

Don'ts

Don't mix changes - One logical change per commit
Don't skip validation - Use commitlint
Don't manual edit - Generated changelogs only
Don't forget breaking changes - Mark with ! or footer
Don't ignore CI - Validate commits in pipeline