conventional-changelog-core

What is conventional-changelog-core?

The conventional-changelog-core npm package is a tool designed to generate changelogs for projects based on semantic versioning and commit message conventions. It automates the creation of changelogs by parsing commit messages, identifying the type of changes, and formatting them into a structured changelog file.

What are conventional-changelog-core's main functionalities?

Generate changelog from git metadata

This code demonstrates how to generate a changelog using the Angular preset. It streams the changelog content and writes it to a 'CHANGELOG.md' file.

const conventionalChangelog = require('conventional-changelog-core');
const fs = require('fs');
const changelogStream = conventionalChangelog({preset: 'angular'});
changelogStream.pipe(fs.createWriteStream('CHANGELOG.md'));

Customizable preset and configuration

This example shows how to use a custom configuration for generating a changelog. The configuration can define how commit messages are parsed, what types of commits to include, and how the changelog is formatted.

const conventionalChangelog = require('conventional-changelog-core');
const config = require('./custom-config');
const changelogStream = conventionalChangelog({config: config});
changelogStream.pipe(process.stdout);

Other packages similar to conventional-changelog-core

standard-version

standard-version is an automatic versioning and changelog generation package that follows the Conventional Commits specification. It wraps around the conventional-changelog-core and provides additional features like version bumping and tagging, making it more comprehensive for release management compared to conventional-changelog-core which focuses primarily on changelog generation.

lerna-changelog

lerna-changelog is tailored for managing monorepos and integrates well with Lerna projects. It generates changelogs based on pull requests and their labels, offering a different approach compared to conventional-changelog-core which relies on commit messages. This makes lerna-changelog particularly useful in collaborative projects that utilize GitHub's PR features extensively.

README

conventional-changelog core

You are probably looking for the cli module. Or use one of the plugins if you are already using the tool: grunt/gulp/atom.

Usage

$ npm install --save conventional-changelog-core

var conventionalChangelogCore = require('conventional-changelog-core');

conventionalChangelogCore()
  .pipe(process.stdout); // or any writable stream

API

conventionalChangelogCore([options, [context, [gitRawCommitsOpts, [parserOpts, [writerOpts]]]]])

Returns a readable stream.

Note: options.transform, options.pkg.transform and writerOpts.transform are different. If you have a better naming suggestion, please send a PR.

options

config

Type: promise, function or object

This should serve as default values for other arguments of conventionalChangelogCore so you don't need to rewrite the same or similar config across your projects. Any value in this could be overwritten. If this is a promise (recommended if async), it should resolve with the config. If this is a function, it expects a node style callback with the config object. If this is an object, it is the config object. The config object should include context, gitRawCommitsOpts, parserOpts and writerOpts.

pkg

Type: object

path

Type: string Default: closest package.json.

The location of your "package.json".

transform

Type: function Default: pass through.

A function that takes package.json data as the argument and returns the modified data. Note this is performed before normalizing package.json data. Useful when you need to add a leading 'v' to your version or modify your repository url, etc.

append

Type: boolean Default: false

Should the log be appended to existing data.

releaseCount

Type: number Default: 1

How many releases of changelog you want to generate. It counts from the upcoming release. Useful when you forgot to generate any previous changelog. Set to 0 to regenerate all.

debug

Type: function Default: function() {}

A debug function. EG: console.debug.bind(console)

warn

Type: function Default: options.debug

A warn function. EG: grunt.verbose.writeln

transform

Type: function Default: get the version (without leading 'v') from tag and format date.

function(commit, cb)

A transform function that applies after the parser and before the writer.

This is the place to modify the parsed commits.

####### commit

The commit from conventional-commits-parser.

####### cb

Callback when you are done.

####### this

this arg of through2.

outputUnreleased

Type: boolean Default: true if a different version than last release is given. Otherwise false.

If this value is true and context.version equals last release then context.version will be changed to 'Unreleased'.

NOTE: You may want to combine this option with releaseCount set to 0 to always overwrite the whole CHANGELOG. conventional-changelog only outputs a CHANGELOG but doesn't read any existing one.

lernaPackage

Specify a package in lerna-style monorepo that the CHANGELOG should be generated for.

Lerna tags releases in the format foo-package@1.0.0 and assumes that packages are stored in the directory structure ./packages/foo-package.

tagPrefix

Specify a prefix for the git tag that will be taken into account during the comparison. For instance if your version tag is prefixed by version/ instead of v you would specify --tagPrefix=version/

context

See the conventional-changelog-writer docs. There are some defaults or changes:

host

Default: normalized host found in package.json.

version

Default: version found in package.json.

owner

Default: extracted from normalized package.json repository.url field.

repository

Default: extracted from normalized package.json repository.url field.

repoUrl

Default: The whole normalized repository url in package.json.

gitSemverTags

Type: array

All git semver tags found in the repository. You can't overwrite this value.

previousTag

Type: string Default: previous semver tag or the first commit hash if no previous tag.

currentTag

Type: string Default: current semver tag or 'v' + version if no current tag.

packageData

Type: object

Your package.json data. You can't overwrite this value.

linkCompare

Type: boolean Default: true if previousTag and currentTag are truthy.

Should link to the page that compares current tag with previous tag?

gitRawCommitsOpts

See the git-raw-commits docs. There are some defaults:

format

Default: '%B%n-hash-%n%H%n-gitTags-%n%d%n-committerDate-%n%ci'

from

Default: based on options.releaseCount.

reverse

Default: true if options.append is truthy.

debug

Type: function Default: options.debug

parserOpts

See the conventional-commits-parser docs.

warn

Default: options.warn

writerOpts

See the conventional-changelog-writer docs. There are some defaults:

finalizeContext

Finalize context is used for generating above context.

NOTE: If you overwrite this value the above context defaults will be gone.

debug

Type: function Default: options.debug

reverse

Default: options.append

doFlush

Default: options.outputUnreleased

Notes for parent modules

This module has options append and releaseCount. However, it doesn't read your previous changelog. Reasons being:

1. The old logs is just to be appended or prepended to the newly generated logs, which is a very simple thing that could be done in the parent module.
2. We want it to be very flexible for the parent module. You could create a readable stream from the file or you could just read the file.
3. We want the duty of this module to be very minimum.

So, when you build a parent module, you need to read the old logs and append or prepend to them based on options.append. However, if options.releaseCount is 0 you need to ignore any previous logs. Please see conventional-github-releaser as an example.

Arguments passed to conventionalChangelogCore will be mutated.

License

MIT