My Workflow
I have created my first Open Source GitHub Action called Changelog CI.
This is a GitHub Action that generates changelog, prepends it to CHANGELOG.md
file, and commits and/or comments it to the release pull request.
Live Example: Changelog CI's Changelog
Submission Category:
Maintainer Must-Haves
Yaml File or Link to Code
Here are the links for Changelog CI
GitHub repository:
saadmk11 / changelog-ci
Changelog CI is a GitHub Action that enables a project to automatically generate changelogs
What is Changelog CI?
Changelog CI is a GitHub Action that enables a project to automatically generate changelogs.
Changelog CI can be triggered on pull_request
, workflow_dispatch
and any other events that can provide the required inputs
Learn more about events that trigger workflows
The workflow can be configured to perform any (or all) of the following actions:
-
For
pull_request
event:- Generates changelog using Pull Request Titles or Commit Messages made after the last release.
-
Prepends the generated changelog to the
CHANGELOG.md
/CHANGELOG.rst
file. - Then Commits the modified
CHANGELOG.md
/CHANGELOG.rst
file to the release pull request branch. - Adds a Comment on the release pull request with the generated changelog.
-
For other events:
- Generate changelog using Pull Request Title or Commit Messages made after the last release.
-
Prepends the generated changelog to the
CHANGELOG.md
/CHANGELOG.rst
file. - Then Creates a Pull Request with the
CHANGELOG.md
/CHANGELOG.rst
file changes.
Marketplace:
https://github.com/marketplace/actions/changelog-ci
Additional Resources / Info
Changelog CI is a new open-source action, as of now, my open-source projects use it.
For example, django-newsfeed and banking-system uses it.
This output was created using changelog-ci
CHANGELOG.md
Changelog CI itself uses this Action to generate Changelog.
How Does It Work:
Changelog CI uses python
and GitHub API
to generate a changelog for a repository.
First, it tries to get the latest release
from the repository (If available).
Then, it checks all the pull requests merged after the last release using the GitHub API. After that, it parses the data and generates the changelog
. Finally, It writes the generated changelog at the beginning of the CHANGELOG.md
(or user-provided filename) file. In addition to that, if a user provides a config (JSON file), Changelog CI parses the user-provided config file and renders the changelog according to users config. Then the changes are committed and/or commented on the release Pull request.
Usage:
To use this Action The pull request title must match with the default regex
or the user-provided regex
from the config file.
Default title regex: ^(?i)release
(title must start with the word "release" (case insensitive))
Default version number regex: This follows SemVer
(Semantic Versioning) pattern. e.g. 1.0.0
, 1.0
, v1.0.1
etc.
For more details on Semantic Versioning pattern go to this link: https://regex101.com/r/Ly7O1x/3/
Note: you can provide your own regex through the config file
Example Workflow Using Changelog CI
name: Changelog CI
# Controls when the action will run. Triggers the workflow on pull request
on:
pull_request:
types: [opened, reopened]
jobs:
build:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
# Checks-out your repository
- uses: actions/checkout@v2
- name: Run Changelog CI
uses: saadmk11/changelog-ci@v0.5.0
with:
# Optional, you can provide any name for your changelog file.
# defaults to ``CHANGELOG.md`` if not provided.
changelog_filename: CHANGELOG.md
# Optional, only required when you want more customization
config_file: changelog-ci-config.json
env:
# Optional, Only required for ``private`` repositories
# and required if the changelog comment
# option is turned on through the config file
GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN}}
Changelog CI Badge:
Add this to your README to display the badge:
![Changelog CI Status](https://github.com/<username>/<repo_name>/workflows/Changelog%20CI/badge.svg)
Example Changelog Output using config file:
Learn more about config file for Changelog CI
from the README.md
Version: 0.0.2
Bug Fixes
New Features
- #68: Update README.md
Documentation Updates
- #66: Docs update
Version: 0.0.1
Bug Fixes
Documentation Updates
- #66: Docs update
Example Changelog Output without using config file:
Version: 0.0.2
Version: 0.0.1
- #43: It feels like testing never ends :(
- #35: Testing again and again
- #44: This is again another test, getting tired
- #37: This is again another test
Changelog CI in Action (Comment & Commit)
Conclusion
I think this will be really helpful for Open Source Maintainers. If anyone is interested please try Changelog CI out and leave feedback :)
Top comments (4)
Just Added an option to GROUP Changelog items using GitHub repository labels and changelog config file. This will give users more control over how the changelog looks. Updated the post. Try it out.
It looks like this:
Version: 0.0.2
Bug Fixes
New Features
Documentation Updates
Awesome! Been thinking to do something like this for sometime but specific to android
Oh! Awesome 👍
I hope someone can help. I followed all the steps but when I do the PR for different versions it shows me commits that are from other versions, what could be the error?