GitHub Changelog

Scope Constraints

• Read-only operations — queries merged PRs, commits, and tags to generate changelog text.
• Does not create releases, tags, or modify repository state.
• Does not publish or push changelog content — use gh-release skill for publishing.

Input Sanitization

• Version/tag identifiers: must match semver format (e.g., v1.2.3) with alphanumeric characters, dots, hyphens only.
• Date values (--since): must be valid ISO 8601 date strings.
• Repository identifier: inferred from local git context; if provided, must match owner/repo format with alphanumeric characters and hyphens only.

/gh-changelog - Generate Changelog

Generate a changelog from merged PRs and commits since the last release.

Usage

/gh-changelog                  # Changelog since last tag
/gh-changelog --since v1.0.0   # Since specific version
/gh-changelog --since v1.0.0 --until v1.1.0  # Between versions
/gh-changelog --format md      # Markdown output (default)
/gh-changelog --format json    # JSON output
/gh-changelog --pr-only        # Only include PR information

Workflow

Step 1: Determine Range

# Get latest tag
LATEST_TAG=$(git describe --tags --abbrev=0 2>/dev/null)

# Or use specified version
SINCE="${SINCE_TAG:-$LATEST_TAG}"
UNTIL="${UNTIL_TAG:-HEAD}"

echo "Generating changelog: $SINCE..$UNTIL"

Step 2: Gather Merged PRs

# Get merged PRs since last tag
gh pr list --state merged --base main --json number,title,author,labels,mergedAt \
    --jq ".[] | select(.mergedAt > \"$SINCE_DATE\")"

# Or parse from git log
git log $SINCE..$UNTIL --merges --format="%s" | grep -oE '#[0-9]+'

Step 3: Categorize Changes

Based on PR labels or conventional commits:

feat:     → Features
fix:      → Bug Fixes
docs:     → Documentation
perf:     → Performance
refactor: → Refactoring
test:     → Tests
chore:    → Maintenance

Step 4: Generate Output

Format into structured changelog.

Output Format

Standard Changelog

Changelog: v1.1.0 → HEAD

Generated: 2025-01-25
Commits: 23
PRs merged: 8

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

## Features

- Add dark mode support (#123) - @user1
  Adds system theme detection and manual toggle

- Improve theme persistence (#124) - @user2
  Saves theme preference to localStorage

- Add keyboard shortcuts (#130) - @user3
  Adds Ctrl+K command palette

## Bug Fixes

- Fix login validation (#125) - @user4
  Properly validates email format

- Fix memory leak in theme hook (#127) - @user1
  Adds proper cleanup in useEffect

- Fix mobile responsive layout (#129) - @user5
  Fixes header overflow on small screens

## Performance

- Optimize bundle size (#126) - @user6
  Reduces initial load by 30%

## Documentation

- Update API documentation (#128) - @user7
  Adds examples for new endpoints

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

## Contributors

Thanks to all contributors for this release!

@user1, @user2, @user3, @user4, @user5, @user6, @user7

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Full diff: https://github.com/owner/repo/compare/v1.1.0...HEAD

Markdown Output

## Changelog

### Features
- Add dark mode support ([#123](https://github.com/owner/repo/pull/123)) - @user1
- Improve theme persistence ([#124](https://github.com/owner/repo/pull/124)) - @user2
- Add keyboard shortcuts ([#130](https://github.com/owner/repo/pull/130)) - @user3

### Bug Fixes
- Fix login validation ([#125](https://github.com/owner/repo/pull/125)) - @user4
- Fix memory leak in theme hook ([#127](https://github.com/owner/repo/pull/127)) - @user1
- Fix mobile responsive layout ([#129](https://github.com/owner/repo/pull/129)) - @user5

### Performance
- Optimize bundle size ([#126](https://github.com/owner/repo/pull/126)) - @user6

### Documentation
- Update API documentation ([#128](https://github.com/owner/repo/pull/128)) - @user7

### Contributors
@user1, @user2, @user3, @user4, @user5, @user6, @user7

**Full Changelog**: [v1.1.0...HEAD](https://github.com/owner/repo/compare/v1.1.0...HEAD)

JSON Output

{
  "from": "v1.1.0",
  "to": "HEAD",
  "generated": "2025-01-25T10:30:00Z",
  "categories": {
    "features": [
      {
        "pr": 123,
        "title": "Add dark mode support",
        "author": "user1",
        "labels": ["enhancement"]
      }
    ],
    "fixes": [...],
    "performance": [...],
    "documentation": [...]
  },
  "contributors": ["user1", "user2", ...],
  "stats": {
    "commits": 23,
    "prs": 8,
    "files_changed": 45
  }
}

Breaking Changes Section

If breaking changes detected:

## ⚠️ Breaking Changes

- **API change**: `getTheme()` now returns Promise (#131)
  Migration: Change `const theme = getTheme()` to `const theme = await getTheme()`

- **Config format**: Theme config moved to separate file (#132)
  Migration: Move theme settings from `config.json` to `theme.config.json`

Category Detection

From PR Labels

| Label | Category | |-------|----------| | enhancement, feature | Features | | bug, fix | Bug Fixes | | documentation | Documentation | | performance | Performance | | breaking-change | Breaking Changes |

From Conventional Commits

| Prefix | Category | |--------|----------| | feat: | Features | | fix: | Bug Fixes | | docs: | Documentation | | perf: | Performance | | BREAKING CHANGE: | Breaking Changes |

Uncategorized Changes

For PRs/commits that don't match categories:

## Other Changes

- Update dependencies (#140) - @dependabot
- Refactor internal utilities (#141) - @user8
- Add more tests (#142) - @user9

Script Location

The changelog generation script is at: ~/.claude/skills/github-workflow/scripts/release-notes.sh

Integration

• Use before /gh-release to prepare release notes
• Use /gh-tag to tag the release
• Output can be copied directly into GitHub release