GitHub Changelog Updater Action

This action automatically updates the CHANGELOG.md file in your repository whenever a new pull request is merged. It uses the your Pull Request as data and append it to the changelog. The data that the action gets in yout repository is: title, body, commits, baseBranch, prUrl, createdAt, prNumber.

Inputs

Name	Type	Description	Required
commitEmail	string	The email used for committing the updated CHANGELOG.md.	true
commitUserName	string	The username used for committing the updated CHANGELOG.md.	true
changelogPath	string	Relative path to your changelog file, starting from the root of your project. Default is "./CHANGELOG.md"	false
githubToken	string	GH token that will provide the permissions to read and write in your repository	true
shouldCreateNewTag	string	This action should create a new tag when loggin changes?	false

Usage

Include this action in your .github/workflows/my-action.yaml file. Here is an example:

name: Updating Changelog
on:
  pull_request:
    branches:
      - master # default branch
    types:
      - closed
jobs:
  updating-change-log:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout code
        uses: actions/checkout@v3
        with:
          ref: master # checkout in default branch

      - name: Update Changelog
        id: action
        uses: AntonioGally/ag-changelogger/@main
        with:
          changelogPath: ./CHANGELOG.md
          commitUserName: AntonioGally
          commitEmail: antonio.gally@gmail.com
          githubToken: ${{ secrets.MY_CHANGELOG_PAT }}
          shouldCreateNewTag: true

Create a PAT to this action

They can be found in GitHub settings. We need repo, workflow and user permissions

Here's the official docs

Workflow permissions

You can find this configuration under your repo's settings. In you sidebar, navigate to Actions > General

Changelog file

Create a initial changelog file that matches with the relativePath. By default, this action will try to find CHANGELOG.md in repo's root.

Observations

• 🚨 The changelog file must exist in the repository's main branch.
• If the pr's title doesn't contains major, minor or patch name, the script will increase the patch number of the version.

Example

Contributing

Just send a nice PR that I'll review it with love :D Or just email me as well I'll read

Under the hood

This project uses ncc to generate a build that bundles all necessary node_modules for the script's execution. The reason behind this approach is to minimize the effort required to run these actions across different repositories. While I could have created a shell script to install dependencies and handle everything manually, I opted for this streamlined solution instead.

The core of the project is a script called changeLogger.js. This script starts by receiving inputs from the workflow and establishing an authenticated connection to the GitHub API. It first retrieves information about the pull request (PR), including all associated commits.

Next, the script determines the next version tag by starting from the latest tag in your repository. If no tags are found, the script will default to v0.1.0. After calculating the next version, it gathers all relevant information into a comprehensive changelog entry.

The script then locates your existing changelog file and appends the newly generated changelog entry. Once the file is updated, it commits the changes using the execSync function from the child_process module. And just like that, your changelog is up to date!

Best practices

Try to fill the description as much as you can, put images and texts that describe directly what was your change in that PR. In a long run, will help a lot in the changelog file, and will be much nicier to see :D

Contacts

• antonio.gally@gmail.com
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/antonio-gally/
• https://github.com/AntonioGally