changelog

changelog is a command-line application to read and manipulate CHANGELOG.md files that follows the keepachangelog.com spec.

It can normalize the file (fmt), create a release (release) and show a specific version (show). See Usage for details.

Table of Contents

• Usage
• Installation
  • Linux and macOS
  • Source
• Commands
  • init
  • fmt
  • show
  • release
• Formatting
• Contributing
• License

Usage

# Initialize a new CHANGELOG.md file
$ changelog init --compare-url=https://github.com/myorg/myrepo/compare/abcdef...1234
# Add a first message under "Added" section
$ changelog added "Initial commit"
# Create release
$ changelog release 0.1.0

Installation

Linux and macOS

The easiest way to install it is to download the latest version from GitHub releases.

There are precompiled binaries for macOS and Linux.

Source

Clone the repository and build the executable:

make build

This will generate a changelog binary that can be copied to /usr/local/bin:

cp changelog /usr/local/bin

Commands

changelog manipulate and validate markdown changelog files following the keepachangelog.com specification.

Usage:
  changelog [command]

Available Commands:
  added       Add item under 'Added' section
  bundle      Bundles files containing unrelased changelog entries
  changed     Add item under 'Changed' section
  deprecated  Add item under 'Deprecated' section
  fixed       Add item under 'Fixed' section
  fmt         Reformat the change log file
  help        Help about any command
  init        Initializes a new changelog
  release     Change Unreleased to [version]
  removed     Add item under 'Removed' section
  security    Add item under 'Security' section
  show        Show changelog for [version]

Flags:
  -f, --filename string   Changelog file or '-' for stdin (default "CHANGELOG.md")
  -h, --help              help for changelog
  -o, --output string     Output file or '-' for stdout (default "-")

Use "changelog [command] --help" for more information about a command.

init

Outputs a changelog with only preamble and Unreleased version to standard output. You can specify a filename using --output/-o flag:

$ touch CHANGELOG.md
$ changelog init -o CHANGELOG.md --compare-url https://github.com/rcmachado/changelog/compare/abcdef...HEAD
Changelog file 'CHANGELOG.md' created.

fmt

Normalize file format (see Formatting for the specific transformation applied):

changelog fmt

show

Show what will be in the next release:

changelog show Unreleased

Show the change log for a specific version:

changelog show 1.2.3

release

Create a new release:

changelog release 1.2.4

Formatting

fmt command normalizes the changelog file. The idea is to always have the same output, no matter how messy the file is. Right now it doesn't do much, but the plan is to evolve it as a kind of go fmt for changelogs.

Currently, the following transformations are applied:

• Sections are sorted (eg. Added, Changed, etc)
• Version links are put at the bottom of the file
• List bullet is always -

Contributing

Feel free to fork and submit a PR. You can also take a look, at the Issues tab to see some ideas.

License

Licensed under MIT. See LICENSE file for details.