changelog-from-release is a (too) small command line tool to generate changelog from GitHub Releases. It fetches releases of the repository via GitHub API and generates changelog in Markdown format. References like #123 or @rhysd are automatically linked.

For example, CHANGELOG.md was generated from the releases page.

Other real-world examples:

• https://github.com/rhysd/actionlint/blob/main/CHANGELOG.md
• https://github.com/rhysd/hgrep/blob/main/CHANGELOG.md
• https://github.com/rhysd/git-brws/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md

Download binary from the releases page or build from sources with Go toolchain (1.21 or later).

$ go install github.com/rhysd/changelog-from-release/v3@latest

Running changelog-from-release with no argument outputs a changelog text in Markdown format to stdout. Please redirect the output to your changelog file.

$ cd /path/to/repo
$ changelog-from-release > CHANGELOG.md
$ cat CHANGELOG.md

For more command line usage, see the -help output.

Automation with GitHub Actions is also offered. Please read action's README for more details.

- uses: rhysd/changelog-from-release/action@v3
  with:
    file: CHANGELOG.md
    github_token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

For example, how to include changes for v1.2.3 in CHANGELOG.md before creating a Git tag v1.2.3?

Please use a release draft.

1. Click 'Draft a new release' button in releases page and write up release note for the next release
2. Click 'Choose a tag' drop down and enter a tag name for the release which is not created yet. Then click '+ Create new tag: ... on publish' item in the drop down.
3. Save the draft by clicking 'Save draft'
4. Run changelog-from-release with setting a personal access token to $GITHUB_TOKEN environment variable
5. Commit the generated changelog
6. Create and push the new Git tag. Ensure the tag name is the same as one entered at 2.
7. Go to the draft release page created at 1. and publish the release by clicking 'Publish release' button

Setting a personal access token at 2. is mandatory since release drafts are private information. API token associated with your account is necessary to fetch it. If you use the action, an API token is automatically generated by GitHub Actions so you don't need to create a token by yourself.

Since changelog-from-release command just generates changelog history, you can insert your favorite templates before/after redirecting the generated output to CHANGELOG.md file.

# Insert header
cat <<-EOS > CHANGELOG.md
Changelog
=========

This is a header.

EOS

changelog-from-release -l 2 >> CHANGELOG.md

# Insert footer
cat <<-EOS >> CHANGELOG.md

This is a footer.
EOS

If your shell supports $(), header and footer can be inserted once.

cat <<-EOS > CHANGELOG.md
Changelog
=========

This is a header.

$(changelog-from-release -l 2)

This is a footer.
EOS

-l 2 means using ## instead of # for each release section. Please adjust it for your use case.

If you're using the action, use header and footer inputs to insert texts before/after the generated changelog.

- uses: rhysd/changelog-from-release/action@v3
  with:
    file: CHANGELOG.md
    github_token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
    args: -l 2
    header: |
      Changelog
      =========

      This is header.
    footer: |-

      This is footer.

For example, if your project has nightly tag release for nightly builds, it should be excluded from changelog.

In this case, use -i command line option to ignore some release tags by regular expression:

changelog-from-release -i '^nightly$' > CHANGELOG.md

For example, if your project uses v{major}.{minor}.{patch} format for release tags, a changelog should be created with extracting them.

In this case, use -e command line option to extract some release tags by regular expression:

changelog-from-release -e '^v\d+\.\d+\.\d+$' > CHANGELOG.md

If you're using the GitHub Action and don't want draft releases to be included in the changelog, you can use the -d flag to omit them:

changelog-from-release -d=false > CHANGELOG.md

GitHub automatically links to references to resources.

changelog-from-release provides the same auto-linking feature. It automatically links the following references and URLs in release notes.

#123 → [#123](https://github.com/owner/repo/issues/123)

External reference with GH- prefix is also supported.

GH-123 → [#123](https://github.com/owner/repo/issues/123)

@rhysd → [@rhysd](https://github.com/rhysd)

93e1af6ec49d23397baba466fba1e89cc8b6de39 → [`93e1af6ec4`](https://github.com/owner/repo/commit/93e1af6ec49d23397baba466fba1e89cc8b6de39)

JIRA-123 → [JIRA-123](https://jira.my-company.com/browse/PROJ-123)

https://github.com/owner/repo/issues/123 → [#123](https://github.com/owner/repo/issues/123)

For outside repositories,

https://github.com/other/repo/issues/123 → [other/repo#123](https://github.com/owner/repo/issues/123)

And URL to an issue comment is supported.

https://github.com/owner/repo/issues/123#issue-1212591132 → [#123 (comment)](https://github.com/owner/repo/issues/123#issue-1212591132)

https://github.com/owner/repo/pull/123 → [#123](https://github.com/owner/repo/pull/123)

For outside repositories,

https://github.com/other/repo/pull/123 → [other/repo#123](https://github.com/owner/repo/pull/123)

And URL to a review comment is supported.

https://github.com/owner/repo/pull/123#pullrequestreview-1212591132 → [#123 (review)](https://github.com/owner/repo/pull/123#pullrequestreview-1212591132)

https://github.com/owner/repo/commit/93e1af6ec4 → [`93e1af6ec4`](https://github.com/owner/repo/commit/93e1af6ec4)

For outside repositories,

https://github.com/other/repo/commit/93e1af6ec4 → [other/repo`93e1af6ec4`](https://github.com/owner/repo/commit/93e1af6ec4)

For GitHub Enterprise, please set GITHUB_API_BASE_URL environment variable to configure API base URL.

export GITHUB_API_BASE_URL=https://github.your-company.com/api/v3/

If changelog-from-release reported API rate limit exceeded or no permission to access the repository, consider to specify a personal access token.

export GITHUB_TOKEN=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

the MIT License