Generate changelog with git-chglog

This GitHub Action creates a CHANGELOG output based on git-chglog tool.
For configuration options see the git-chglog repository.

Features

• Generates the CHANGELOG changes in Markdown format based on git-chglog.
• Exports changelog to a variable that can used in a subsequent step to create a release changelog.
• Use your exiting git-chglog configuration and template.
• Create a new CHANGELOG.md file or append to an existing one.

Example workflows

Generate CHANGELOG on every push to main

name: Build and release
on: 
  push:
    branches:
      - main

jobs:
  package:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: pfandie/generate-changelog-action@v1
        with:
          next_tag: "${{ github.ref_name }}"

Generate CHANGELOG on push to release branches with previous tag

name: Build and Release

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - 'release/*'

jobs:
  custom_test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    permissions:
      contents: write
      pull-requests: read

    name: Generate Release
    steps:
      - name: checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v3
        with:
          fetch-depth: 0

      - name: Get previous tag
        id: previousTag
        run: |
          name=$(git describe --abbrev=0 --tags $(git rev-list --tags --skip=1 --max-count=1))
          echo "previousTag: $name"
          echo "previousTag=$name" >> $GITHUB_ENV

      - name: Generate Changelog
        uses: pfandie/generate-changelog-action@v1
        id: changelog
        with:
          config_path:
          next_tag: "${{ github.ref_name }}"
          old_tag: "${{ env.previousTag }}"
          output_file: "MyChangelog.md"
          write_file: true

Generate CHANGELOG and Release on tag push

name: Build and Release

on:
  push:
    tags:
      - 'v*'

jobs:
  custom_test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    permissions:
      contents: write
      pull-requests: read

    name: Generate Release
    steps:
      - name: checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v3
        with:
          fetch-depth: 0

      - name: Generate Changelog
        uses: pfandie/generate-changelog-action@v1
        id: changelog

      - name: Create Release
        uses: ncipollo/release-action@v1.12.0
        with:
          makeLatest: true
          token: ${{ github.token }}
          body: ${{ steps.changelog.outputs.changelog }}
          name: "Release ${{ github.ref_name }}"

Input Parameters

Parameter	Description	Required	Default
config_path	Path to config directory. Defaults to: .chglog	❌	null
next_tag	The next tag for version number, e.g. "${{ github.ref_name }}"	✅	null
old_tag	The previous tag to get only the changelog diff, e.g. "v1.0.0"	❌	null
output_file	Name of the output file, requires write_file == true	❌	CHANGELOG.md
write_file	Write output to file	❌	false

Outputs

• changelog: Changelog content if outputFile is not set

Local Development

You can execute the action locally by running the following command:
each parameter is passed as an environment variable.

# make sure to have git-chglog locally installed
INPUT_CONFIG_PATH=.chglog INPUT_NEXT_TAG=1.0.0 ./entrypoint.sh

Versioning

We use SemVer for versioning. For the versions available, see the tags on this repository.

License

The scripts and documentation in this project are released under the MIT License

Credits

• github-changelog-action for inspiring to extend the actions
• git-chglog for a great tool on creating (and customizing) CHANGELOG
• jacobtomlinson for the post of Creating GitHub Actions in Go