Automate Release Notes a.ka. Changelog with release please

#github

Curious about what is being released into a project?

Keep a Changelog, it keeps your audience up to date with the latest changes at a glance!

And even better, automate the CHANGELOG.md each time a PR is merged into the base branch:

by using conventional commits, it creates a standard type for having a commit message format: type(optional scope): message
and adding release please to your repository as a github action

How to automate the Changelog

1 - Create .github/workflows/release-please.yml at the root of the repository

$ mkdir .github && cd .github && mkdir workflows && cd workflows && touch release-please.yml

2 - Modify the changes on release-please.yml and choose the release-type

# release-please.yml
on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main
name: release-please
jobs:
  release-please:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: google-github-actions/release-please-action@v3
        with:
          release-type: simple

3 - Add the commit message and merge the branch. Make sure to follow conventional commits.

4 - Some changelog sections will not be displayed. To override the default, update the release-please.yml with changelog-types with the field hidden:false

# release-please.yml
...
        with:
          release-type: simple
          changelog-types: >
            [
              { "type": "build", "section": "Build System", "hidden": false },
              { "type": "ci", "section": "Continuous Integration", "hidden": false },
              { "type": "chore", "section": "Miscellaneous Chores", "hidden": false },
              { "type": "docs", "section": "Documentation", "hidden": false },
              { "type": "feat", "section": "Features", "hidden": false },
              { "type": "fix", "section": "Bug Fixes", "hidden": false },
              { "type": "perf", "section": "Performance Improvements", "hidden": false },
              { "type": "revert", "section": "Reverts", "hidden": false },
              { "type": "refactor", "section": "Code Refactoring", "hidden": false },
              { "type": "style", "section": "Styles", "hidden": false },
              { "type": "test", "section": "Tests", "hidden": false }
            ]

5 - Configure default to PR title for squash and merge commits when merging a pull request

6 - See the automated changelog PR - github link

Using the Squash and merge PR in github will group the commits into one commit, displaying just one line with the PR#. While not using the Squash and merge PR, each commit will be listed on its own, as displayed under the section "Continuous Integration"