ai-release-notes

AI Release Notes

Generate polished, AI-powered release notes from GitHub's auto-generated changelog and optionally create a draft GitHub release.

The action compares the current tag with the previous one, fetches the raw changelog via the GitHub API, rewrites it with an AI model, and creates a draft release with the result.

Two providers are supported via the provider input:

• openai (default) — any OpenAI-compatible chat completions endpoint, authenticated with a static api-key.
• bedrock — Claude on Amazon Bedrock, authenticated with the ambient AWS credentials. Combined with aws-actions/configure-aws-credentials and an OIDC role this needs no stored secret at all — only short-lived STS credentials derived from the workflow's OIDC token. The request goes through the aws CLI preinstalled on GitHub-hosted runners, so the action stays dependency-free.

Note: This action previously used the GitHub Models API, which was fully retired on July 30, 2026.

In all cases the AI rewrite degrades gracefully: when no credentials are configured or the AI call fails, the raw GitHub changelog is used and the release is still created.

Prerequisites

The calling workflow must:

1. Check out the repository with full history (fetch-depth: 0) so previous tags can be detected.
2. Grant permissions for contents: write (to create releases).
3. Provide credentials — either an api-key for an OpenAI-compatible provider, or (for provider: bedrock) AWS credentials via aws-actions/configure-aws-credentials, which additionally needs id-token: write permission. Without credentials, the release falls back to the raw GitHub changelog.

Usage

Minimal Example

Reproduces the default behaviour — no PR links, no authors, bold feature names, sections: New Features, Improvements, Bug Fixes, Other.

name: AI Release Notes
on:
  push:
    tags: ["v*"]

permissions:
  contents: write

jobs:
  release-notes:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
        with:
          fetch-depth: 0

      - uses: shopware/github-actions/ai-release-notes@main
        with:
          product-name: "My Product"
          api-key: ${{ secrets.OPENAI_API_KEY }}

Claude on Amazon Bedrock (no stored secret)

Authenticates with short-lived STS credentials from the workflow's OIDC token. BEDROCK_ROLE_ARN and BEDROCK_AWS_REGION are non-secret repository variables; the IAM role needs bedrock:InvokeModel* on the inference profile ARN and on the underlying foundation-model ARNs in every region the profile routes to.

name: AI Release Notes
on:
  push:
    tags: ["v*"]

permissions:
  contents: write
  id-token: write

jobs:
  release-notes:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
        with:
          fetch-depth: 0

      - uses: aws-actions/configure-aws-credentials@v6
        with:
          role-to-assume: ${{ vars.BEDROCK_ROLE_ARN }}
          aws-region: ${{ vars.BEDROCK_AWS_REGION }}

      - uses: shopware/github-actions/ai-release-notes@main
        with:
          product-name: "My Product"
          provider: "bedrock"

The default Bedrock model is the eu.anthropic.claude-sonnet-5 cross-region inference profile — a bare model id is rejected for on-demand throughput in eu-central-1, and the eu. prefix keeps routing inside EU regions. temperature is not sent on this path (Claude Sonnet 5 and Opus 5 reject sampling parameters).

Using a Different OpenAI-Compatible Provider

Any OpenAI-compatible chat completions endpoint works — for example the Anthropic API:

      - uses: shopware/github-actions/ai-release-notes@main
        with:
          product-name: "My Product"
          api-endpoint: "https://api.anthropic.com/v1/chat/completions"
          api-key: ${{ secrets.ANTHROPIC_API_KEY }}
          model: "claude-sonnet-5"

Customised Example

Override formatting, sections, and release settings.

      - uses: shopware/github-actions/ai-release-notes@main
        with:
          product-name: "Databus"
          product-description: "A workflow execution engine written in Go"
          include-pr-links: "true"
          include-authors: "true"
          bold-features: "false"
          sections: "Breaking Changes,New Features,Improvements,Bug Fixes,Internal"
          collapse-types: "dependency,CI,refactor"
          tag-pattern: "^v"
          release-name: "{tag}"
          draft: "false"

Generate Notes Without Creating a Release

Use the action as a pure notes generator — for example to post to Slack or append to a changelog file.

      - uses: shopware/github-actions/ai-release-notes@main
        id: notes
        with:
          product-name: "Nexus Contracts"
          create-release: "false"

      - name: Post to Slack
        run: echo "${{ steps.notes.outputs.release-notes }}"

Inputs

Input	Required	Default	Description
product-name	yes	—	Product name used in the AI prompt
product-description	no	""	Optional product context for better AI output
bold-features	no	"true"	Use bold for feature names in bullets
include-pr-links	no	"false"	Include PR links in bullets
include-authors	no	"false"	Include author attributions in bullets
sections	no	"New Features,Improvements,Bug Fixes,Other"	Comma-separated list of sections in desired order
collapse-types	no	"dependency,translation,CI"	Change types collapsed under the last section
additional-rules	no	""	Extra rules appended to the default prompt
custom-prompt	no	""	Completely override the system prompt (ignores all formatting inputs)
provider	no	"openai"	AI provider: "openai" or "bedrock"
api-endpoint	no	"https://api.openai.com/v1/chat/completions"	OpenAI-compatible chat completions endpoint URL (provider: openai only)
api-key	no	""	API key (provider: openai only) — when empty, the AI rewrite is skipped and the raw changelog is used
model	no	per provider	"gpt-4o" for openai, "eu.anthropic.claude-sonnet-5" for bedrock
temperature	no	"0.4"	AI temperature — only sent on the openai path
max-output-tokens	no	"8192"	Output token budget (provider: bedrock only) — Claude's adaptive thinking draws from the same budget
tag-pattern	no	"^v"	Regex pattern to match tags when detecting the previous release
release-name	no	"Release {tag}"	Release name template — use {tag} as placeholder for the tag name
draft	no	"true"	Create the release as a draft
prerelease	no	"false"	Mark the release as a prerelease
create-release	no	"true"	Whether to create a GitHub release ("false" = only generate notes)
github-token	no	${{ github.token }}	GitHub token (needs contents:write)

Outputs

Output	Description
release-notes	The AI-generated release notes (Markdown) — or the raw changelog when the AI rewrite was skipped
raw-notes	The raw GitHub-generated changelog before AI rewrite
release-url	URL of the created release (empty if create-release is "false")
previous-tag	The detected previous git tag

How the Prompt Works

By default, the action builds a system prompt dynamically from the inputs. The prompt instructs the AI to:

• Group changes under the configured sections (omitting empty ones)
• Collapse dependency bumps, translations, and CI changes under the last section
• Optionally bold feature names, include/exclude PR links and authors
• Start with a ## Release Notes — <tag> heading
• Keep the "Full Changelog" comparison link

Extending the Default Prompt

Use additional-rules to add domain-specific instructions without replacing the entire prompt:

        with:
          product-name: "My API"
          additional-rules: |
            - Always mention the affected API endpoint in parentheses.
            - Flag any breaking changes with a ⚠️ emoji.

Full Prompt Override

Use custom-prompt when you need complete control. All formatting inputs (bold-features, include-pr-links, etc.) are ignored when a custom prompt is set:

        with:
          product-name: "My Product"
          custom-prompt: |
            You are a changelog writer. Summarise the changes in 3 bullet points.
            Be extremely concise. Output Markdown only.