github_changelog_generator
Advanced tools
Fully automated changelog generation - This gem generates a changelog file based on tags, issues and merged pull requests (and splits them into separate lists according to labels) from :octocat: GitHub.
Since you don't have to fill your CHANGELOG.md manually now: just run the script, relax and take a cup of :coffee: before your next release! :tada:
To make it easier for users and contributors to see precisely what notable changes have been made between each release (or version) of the project.
Because software tools are for people. "Changelogs make it easier for users and contributors to see precisely what notable changes have been made between each release (or version) of the project."
:arrow_right: https://keepachangelog.com
GitHub Changelog Generator is a Ruby program, distributed as a RubyGem. The Ruby language homepage has an Installation page.
Install the gem like:
$ gem install github_changelog_generator
Depending on your system, you may need to run the shell as an Administrator (Windows),
or use sudo gem install github_changelog_generator (Linux).
github_changelog_generator -u github_project_namespace -p github_project
(where the project namespace is likely your username if it's a project you own, but it could also be the namespace of the project)
Using Docker is an alternative to installing Ruby and the gem.
Example invocation:
$ docker run -it --rm -v "$(pwd)":/usr/local/src/your-app githubchangeloggenerator/github-changelog-generator
For GitHub Enterprise repos, specify both --github-site and --github-api options:
$ github_changelog_generator --github-site="https://github.yoursite.com" \
--github-api="https://github.yoursite.com/api/v3/"
This generates a CHANGELOG.md, with pretty Markdown formatting.
Look at CHANGELOG.md for this project
ActionSheetPicker-3.0/CHANGELOG.md was generated by command:
$ github_changelog_generator -u github-changelog-generator -p ActionSheetPicker-3.0
In general, it looks like this:
1.2.5 (2015-01-15)
Implemented enhancements:
- Use milestone to specify in which version bug was fixed #22
Fixed bugs:
- Error when trying to generate log for repo without tags #32
Merged pull requests:
PrettyPrint class is included using lowercase 'pp' #43 (schwing)
support enterprise github via command line options #42 (glenlovett)
Print help for all command-line options to learn more details:
$ github_changelog_generator --help
For more details about params, read the Wiki page: Advanced changelog generation examples
In your project root, you can put a params file named .github_changelog_generator to override default params:
Example:
unreleased=false
future-release=5.0.0
since-tag=1.0.0
GitHub only allows 50 unauthenticated requests per hour.
Therefore, it's recommended to run this script with authentication by using a token.
Here's how:
--token <your-40-digit-token>; ORCHANGELOG_GITHUB_TOKEN environment variable to your 40 digit tokenYou can set an environment variable by running the following command at the prompt, or by adding it to your shell profile (e.g., .env, ~/.bash_profile, ~/.zshrc, etc):
export CHANGELOG_GITHUB_TOKEN="«your-40-digit-github-token»"
So, if you get a message like this:
API rate limit exceeded for github_username.
See: https://developer.github.com/v3/#rate-limiting
It's time to create this token! (Or, wait an hour for GitHub to reset your unauthenticated request limit.)
Knowing how dedicated you are to your project, you probably haven't been waiting for github-changelog-generator to keep a changelog.
But you probably don't want your project's open issues and PRs for all past features listed in your historic changelog, either.
That's where --base <your-manual-changelog.md> comes in handy!
This option lets append your old manual changelog to the end of the generated entries.
If you have a HISTORY.md file in your project, it will automatically be picked as the static historical changelog and appended.
You love rake? We do, too! So, we've made it even easier for you:
we've provided a rake task library for your changelog generation.
Configure the task in your Rakefile:
require 'github_changelog_generator/task'
GitHubChangelogGenerator::RakeTask.new :changelog do |config|
config.user = 'username'
config.project = 'project-name'
config.since_tag = '0.1.14'
config.future_release = '0.2.0'
end
All command-line options can be passed to the rake task as config
parameters. And since you're naming the rake task yourself, you can create
as many as you want.
You can look for params names from the parser source code (#setup_parser). For example, to translate the bugs label to Portuguese, instead of setting config.bugs_label, you have to set config.bug_prefix, and so on.
Generate canonical, neat changelog file, with default sections that follow basic changelog guidelines :gem:
Optionally generate Unreleased changes (closed issues that have not released yet) :dizzy:
GitHub Enterprise support via command line options! :factory:
Flexible format customization:
milestone the same name as the tag of version :pushpin:question, duplicate, invalid, or wontfix) :scissors:Distinguish issues by labels. :mag_right:
bug) :beetle:enhancement) :star2:Manually include or exclude issues by labels :wrench:
Customize lots more! Tweak the changelog to fit your preferences :tophat:
(See github_changelog_generator --help for details)
For each version, you can add a release summary with text, images, gif animations, etc, and show new features and notes clearly to the user. This is done using GitHub metadata.
Example: adding the release summary for v1.0.0:
Hello, World! :tada:
release-summary and add it to the GitHub Milestone v1.0.0github-changelog-generatorv1.0.0 (2014-11-07)
Hello, World! :tada:
Implemented enhancements:
- Add some features
Here is a wikipage list of alternatives that I found. But none satisfied my requirements.
If you know other projects, feel free to edit this Wiki page!
Here's a wikipage list of projects.
If you've used this project in a live app, please let me know! Nothing makes me happier than seeing someone else take my work and go wild with it.
If you are using github_changelog_generator to generate your project's changelog, or know of other projects using it, please add it to this list.
Nothing is impossible!
Open an issue and let's make the generator better together!
Bug reports, feature requests, patches, and well-wishes are always welcome. :heavy_exclamation_mark:
GitHub Releases is a very good thing. And it's very good practice to maintain it. (Not a lot of people are using it yet!) :congratulations:
BTW: I would like to support GitHub Releases in next releases ;)
I'm not trying to compare the quality of handwritten and auto-generated logs. That said....
An auto-generated changelog really helps, even if you manually fill in the release notes!
When your Ruby is old, and you don't want to upgrade, and you want to control which libraries you use, you can use Bundler.
In a Gemfile, perhaps in a non-deployed :development group, add this
gem:
group :development do
gem 'github_changelog_generator', require: false
end
Then you can keep back dependencies like rack, which currently is only compatible with Ruby >= 2.2.2. So, use an older version for your app by adding a line like this to the Gemfile:
gem 'rack', '~> 1.6'
This way, you can keep on using github_changelog_generator, even if you can't get the latest version of Ruby installed.
Workaround: Create a C:\tmp.
Would you like to contribute to this project? CONTRIBUTING.md has all the details on how to do that.
Join the chat at gitter : github-changelog-generator
GitHub Changelog Generator is released under the MIT License.
FAQs
Unknown package
We found that github_changelog_generator demonstrated a not healthy version release cadence and project activity because the last version was released a year ago. It has 3 open source maintainers collaborating on the project.
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