Most indie SaaS founders I know have the same changelog problem: they ship every week to GitHub, nobody writes release notes, and if there IS a changelog page it has not been updated in months.
The result? Users do not know what changed. They churn thinking the product is stagnant. They email support about features that shipped three months ago.
The usual advice is "just write a changelog" -- but that ignores why founders skip it: it takes real time, interrupts the shipping flow, and the right format is never obvious.
What actually works: your merged PRs are already a changelog
Your pull requests are a changelog -- just not formatted for users. The pattern that works:
- Pull your recent merged PRs (the titles are 80% of the work)
- Reframe from technical to user-facing ("fix null pointer in auth" becomes "fixed a login error some users saw after signup")
- Group by theme: Features, Fixes, Improvements
I built a free tool that does step 1 in about 20 seconds:
tryshiplog.io/tools/github-changelog-generator -- paste any public GitHub repo URL, get your recent merged PRs formatted into release-note structure. No account, no card, no waitlist.
Honest about what it does: it reads merged PRs via the GitHub API and formats them into groups. It does NOT currently rewrite them into polished prose -- you get structured raw material to copy and edit from. Works on any public repo right now.
The paid product (Shiplog, $19/mo pre-launch at tryshiplog.io) connects to private repos and embeds an in-app changelog popup in your product. But the free tool works for any public repo today, no signup needed.
What is your current changelog workflow? GitHub Releases, a dedicated tool, or just... nothing?
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