📄🔖📦

release-changelog-builder-action

... a GitHub action that builds your release notes / changelog fast, easy and exactly the way you want.

What's included 🚀 • Setup 🛠️ • Sample 🖥️ • Customization 🖍️ • Contribute 🧬 • License 📓

What's included 🚀

Super simple integration
- ...even on huge repositories with hundreds of tags
Parallel releases support
Rich changelogs based on PRs
- Alternative commit based mode
Blazingly fast execution
Supports any git project
Highly flexible configuration
Lightweight
Supports any branch
Rich build log output

Setup

Configure the workflow

Specify the action as part of your GitHub actions workflow:

- name: "Build Changelog"
  id: build_changelog
  uses: mikepenz/release-changelog-builder-action@{latest-release}
  env:
    GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

Action outputs

After action execution it will return the changelog and additional information as step output. You can use it in any follow-up step by referencing the output by referencing it via the id of the step. For example build_changelog.

# ${{steps.{CHANGELOG_STEP_ID}.outputs.changelog}}
${{steps.build_changelog.outputs.changelog}}

A full set list of possible output values for this action.

Output	Description
`outputs.changelog`	The built release changelog built from the merged pull requests
`outputs.owner`	Specifies the owner of the repository processed
`outputs.repo`	Describes the repository name, which was processed
`outputs.fromTag`	Defines the `fromTag` which describes the lower bound to process pull requests for
`outputs.toTag`	Defines the `toTag` which describes the upper bound to process pull request for
`outputs.failed`	Defines if there was an issue with the action run, and the changelog may not have been generated correctly. [true, false]
`outputs.pull_requests`	Defines a `,` joined array with all PR IDs associated with the generated changelog.
`outputs.categorized_prs`	Count of PRs which were successfully categorized as part of the action.
`outputs.open_prs`	Count of open PRs. Only fetched if `includeOpen` is enabled.
`outputs.uncategorized_prs`	Count of PRs which were not categorized as part of the action.

Full Sample 🖥️

Below is a complete example showcasing how to define a build, which is executed when tagging the project. It consists of:

Prepare tag, via the GITHUB_REF environment variable
Build changelog, given the tag
Create release on GitHub - specifying body with constructed changelog

Note: PRs will only show up in the changelog if assigned one of the default label categories "feature", "fix" or "test"

name: 'CI'
on:
  push:
    tags:
      - '*'

jobs:
  release:
    if: startsWith(github.ref, 'refs/tags/')
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Build Changelog
        id: github_release
        uses: mikepenz/release-changelog-builder-action@v1
        env:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

      - name: Create Release
        uses: actions/create-release@v1
        with:
          tag_name: ${{ github.ref }}
          release_name: ${{ github.ref }}
          body: ${{steps.github_release.outputs.changelog}}
        env:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

Customization 🖍️

Note

⚠️ When running this action for non tags trigger the toTag will be automatically resolved using the latest tag as retrieved by the git API.

⚠️ The first release tag is a special case since there is no previous release the action can reference to. For this case, there are 2 options:

When checking out the source via git (E.g.: actions/checkout), the action will use the first commit.
Create a initial tag on the commit you want to begin a changelog from (for example v0.0.1).

💡 By default not specifying fromTag or toTag will resolve toTag from either the ref or alternatively fallback to the latest tag from the git API. fromTag is resolved by sorting tags using semver. Check the configuration for alternatives.

Configuration

The action supports flexible configuration options to modify vast areas of its behavior. To do so, provide the configuration file to the workflow using the configuration setting.

- name: "Build Changelog"
  uses: mikepenz/release-changelog-builder-action@{latest-release}
  with:
    configuration: "configuration.json"
  env:
    GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

⚠️ Please note: It is required to have a checkout step prior to the changelog step, to allow the action to discover the configuration file.

This configuration is a .json file in the following format.

{
    "categories": [
      {
        "title": "## 🚀 Features",
        "labels": ["feature"]
      },
      {
        "title": "## 🐛 Fixes",
        "labels": ["fix"]
      },
      {
        "title": "## 🧪 Tests",
        "labels": ["test"],
      },
      {
        "title": "## 🧪 Tests and some 🪄 Magic",
        "labels": ["test", "magic"],
        "exclude_labels": ["no-magic"],
        "exhaustive": true,
      }
    ],
    "ignore_labels": [
      "ignore"
    ],
    "sort": "ASC",
    "template": "${{CHANGELOG}}\n\n<details>\n<summary>Uncategorized</summary>\n\n${{UNCATEGORIZED}}\n</details>",
    "pr_template": "- ${{TITLE}}\n   - PR: #${{NUMBER}}",
    "empty_template": "- no changes",
    "label_extractor": [
      {
        "pattern": "(.) (.+)",
        "target": "$1",
        "flags": "gu"
      },
      {
        "pattern": "\\[Issue\\]",
        "on_property": "title",
        "method": "match"
      }
    ],
    "duplicate_filter": {
      "pattern": "\\[ABC-....\\]",
      "on_property": "title",
      "method": "match"
    },
    "transformers": [
      {
        "pattern": "[\\-\\*] (\\[(...|TEST|CI|SKIP)\\])( )?(.+?)\n(.+?[\\-\\*] )(.+)",
        "target": "- $4\n  - $6"
      }
    ],
    "max_tags_to_fetch": 200,
    "max_pull_requests": 200,
    "max_back_track_time_days": 365,
    "exclude_merge_branches": [
      "Owner/qa"
    ],
    "tag_resolver": {
      "method": "semver",
      "filter": {
        "pattern": "api-(.+)",
        "flags": "gu"
      }
    },
    "base_branches": [
      "dev"
    ]
}

Any section of the configuration can be omitted to have defaults apply.

💡 ignore_labels take precedence over category labels, allowing to specifically exclude certain PRs.

Defaults for the configuration can be found in the configuration.ts

Please see the Configuration Specification for detailed descriptions on the offered configuration options.

Advanced workflow specification

For advanced use cases additional settings can be provided to the action

- name: "Complex Configuration"
  id: build_changelog
  if: startsWith(github.ref, 'refs/tags/')
  uses: mikepenz/release-changelog-builder-action@{latest-release}
  with:
    configuration: "configuration_complex.json"
    owner: "mikepenz"
    repo: "release-changelog-builder-action"
    ignorePreReleases: "false"
    fromTag: "0.3.0"
    toTag: "0.5.0"
    token: ${{ secrets.PAT }}

💡 All input values are optional. It is only required to provide the token either via the input, or as env variable.

Input	Description
`configuration`	Relative path, to the `configuration.json` file, providing additional configurations
`outputFile`	Optional relative path to a file to store the resulting changelog in.
`owner`	The owner of the repository to generate the changelog for
`repo`	Name of the repository we want to process
`fromTag`	Defines the 'start' from where the changelog will consider merged pull requests
`toTag`	Defines until which tag the changelog will consider merged pull requests
`path`	Allows to specify an alternative sub directory, to use as base
`token`	Alternative config to specify token. You should prefer `env.GITHUB_TOKEN` instead though
`baseUrl`	Alternative config to specify base url for GitHub Enterprise authentication. Default value set to `https://api.github.com`
`includeOpen`	Enables to also fetch currently open PRs. Default: false
`ignorePreReleases`	Allows to ignore pre-releases for changelog generation (E.g. for 1.0.1... 1.0.0-rc02 <- ignore, 1.0.0 <- pick). Only used if `fromTag` was not specified. Default: false
`failOnError`	Defines if the action will result in a build failure if problems occurred. Default: false
`commitMode`	Special configuration for projects which work without PRs. Uses commit messages as changelog. This mode looses access to information only available for PRs. Default: false

💡 ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }} only grants rights to the current repository, for other repositories please use a PAT (Personal Access Token).

PR Template placeholders

Table of supported placeholders allowed to be used in the pr_template configuration, which will be included in the release notes / changelog.

Placeholder	Description
`${{NUMBER}}`	The number referencing this pull request. E.g. 13
`${{TITLE}}`	Specified title of the merged pull request
`${{URL}}`	Url linking to the pull request on GitHub
`${{STATUS}}`	Status of the PR. Usually always `merged`. Possibly `Open` if `includeOpen` is configured.
`${{CREATED_AT}}`	The ISO time, the pull request was created at
`${{MERGED_AT}}`	The ISO time, the pull request was merged at
`${{MERGE_SHA}}`	The commit SHA, the pull request was merged with
`${{AUTHOR}}`	Author creating and opening the pull request
`${{LABELS}}`	The labels associated with this pull request, joined by `,`
`${{MILESTONE}}`	Milestone this PR was part of, as assigned on GitHub
`${{BODY}}`	Description/Body of the pull request as specified on GitHub
`${{ASSIGNEES}}`	Login names of assigned GitHub users, joined by `,`
`${{REVIEWERS}}`	GitHub Login names of specified reviewers, joined by `,`

Template placeholders

Table of supported placeholders allowed to be used in the template and empty_template (only supports placeholder marked for empty) configuration, to give additional control on defining the contents of the release notes / changelog.

Placeholder	Description	Empty
`${{CHANGELOG}}`	The contents of the changelog, matching the labels as specified in the categories configuration
`${{UNCATEGORIZED}}`	All pull requests not matching a specified label in categories
`${{OPEN}}`	All open pull requests. Will only be fetched if `includeOpen` is enabled.
`${{IGNORED}}`	All pull requests defining labels matching the `ignore_labels` configuration
`${{OWNER}}`	Describes the owner of the repository the changelog was generated for	x
`${{REPO}}`	The repository name of the repo the changelog was generated for	x
`${{FROM_TAG}}`	Defines the 'start' from where the changelog did consider merged pull requests	x
`${{TO_TAG}}`	Defines until which tag the changelog did consider merged pull requests	x
`${{RELEASE_DIFF}}`	Introduces a link to the full diff between from tag and to tag releases	x
`${{CATEGORIZED_COUNT}}`	The count of PRs which were categorized
`${{UNCATEGORIZED_COUNT}}`	The count of PRs and changes which were not categorized. No label overlapping with category labels
`${{OPEN_COUNT}}`	The count of open PRs. Will only be fetched if `includeOpen` is configured.
`${{IGNORED_COUNT}}`	The count of PRs and changes which were specifically ignored from the changelog.

Configuration Specification

Table of descriptions for the configuration.json options to configure the resulting release notes / changelog.

Input	Description
categories	An array of `category` specifications, offering a flexible way to group changes into categories.
category.title	The display name of a category in the changelog.
category.labels	An array of labels, to match pull request labels against. If any PR label matches any category label, the pull request will show up under this category.
category.exclude_labels	Similar to `labels`, an array of labels to match PRs against, but if a match occurs the PR is excluded from this category.
category.exhaustive	Will require all labels defined within this category to be present on the matching PR.
ignore_labels	An array of labels, to match pull request labels against. If any PR label overlaps, the pull request will be ignored from the changelog. This takes precedence over category labels
sort	The sort order of pull requests. [ASC, DESC]
template	Specifies the global template to pick for creating the changelog. See Template placeholders for possible values
pr_template	Defines the per pull request template. See PR Template placeholders for possible values
empty_template	Template to pick if no changes are detected. See Template placeholders for possible values
label_extractor	An array of `Extractor` specifications, offering a flexible API to extract additinal labels from a PR (Default: `body`, Default in commit mode: `commit message`).
label_extractor.pattern	A `regex` pattern, extracting values of the change message.
label_extractor.target	The result pattern. The result text will be used as label. If empty, no label is created. (Unused for `match` method)
label_extractor.on_property	The property to retrieve the text from. This is optional. Defaults to: `body`. Alternative values: `title`, `author`, `milestone`.
label_extractor.method	The extraction method used. Defaults to: `replace`. Alternative value: `match`. The method specified references the JavaScript String method.
label_extractor.flags	Defines the regex flags specified for the pattern. Default: `gu`
label_extractor.on_empty	Defines the placeholder to be filled in, if the regex does not lead to a result.
duplicate_filter	Defines the `Extractor` to use for retrieving the identifier for a PR. In case of duplicates will keep the last matching pull request (depends on `sort`). See `label_extractor` for details on `Extractor` properties.
transformers	An array of `transform` specifications, offering a flexible API to modify the text per pull request. This is applied on the change text created with `pr_template`. `transformers` are executed per change, in the order specified
transformer.pattern	A `regex` pattern, extracting values of the change message.
transformer.target	The result pattern, the regex groups will be filled into. Allows for full transformation of a pull request message. Including potentially specified texts
max_tags_to_fetch	The maximum amount of tags to load from the API to find the previous tag. Loaded paginated with 100 per page
max_pull_requests	The maximum amount of pull requests to load from the API. Loaded paginated with 30 per page
max_back_track_time_days	Defines the max amount of days to go back in time per changelog
exclude_merge_branches	An array of branches to be ignored from processing as merge commits
tag_resolver	Section to provide configuration for the tag resolving logic. Used if no `fromTag` is provided
tag_resolver.method	Defines the method to use. Current options are: `semver`, `sort`. Default: `semver`
tag_resolver.filter	Defines a regex which is used to filter out tags not matching.
tag_resolver.transformer	Defines a regex transformer used to optionally transform the tag after the filter was applied. Allows to adjust the format to e.g. semver.
base_branches	The target branches for the merged PR, ingnores PRs with different target branch. Values can be a `regex`. Default: allow all base branches

Contribute 🧬

# Install the dependencies
$ npm install

# Verify lint is happy
$ npm run lint -- --fix

# Build the typescript and package it for distribution
$ npm run build && npm run package

# Run the tests, use to debug, and test it out
$ npm test

It's suggested to export the token to your path before running the tests so that API calls can be done to GitHub.

export GITHUB_TOKEN=your_personal_github_pat

Developed By

Mike Penz
mikepenz.com - mikepenz@gmail.com
paypal.me/mikepenz

Credits

Core parts of the PR fetching logic are based on pull-release-notes
- Nikolay Blagoev - GitHub
action-gh-release for a few great README ideas

Other actions

xray-action
action-junit-report
jira-release-composition-action

License

Copyright for portions of pr-release-notes are held by Nikolay Blagoev, 2019-2020 as part of project pull-release-notes.
All other copyright for project pr-release-notes are held by Mike Penz, 2021.

Fork License

All patches and changes applied to the original source are licensed under the Apache 2.0 license.

Copyright 2021 Mike Penz

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
You may obtain a copy of the License at

   http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
limitations under the License.

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README.md

README.md

release-changelog-builder-action

What's included 🚀

Setup

Configure the workflow

Action outputs

Full Sample 🖥️

Customization 🖍️

Note

Configuration

Advanced workflow specification

PR Template placeholders

Template placeholders

Configuration Specification

Contribute 🧬

Developed By

Credits

Other actions

License

Fork License

Sample result release notes / changelog

Files

README.md

Latest commit

History

README.md

File metadata and controls

release-changelog-builder-action

What's included 🚀

Setup

Configure the workflow

Action outputs

Full Sample 🖥️

Customization 🖍️

Note

Configuration

Advanced workflow specification

PR Template placeholders

Template placeholders

Configuration Specification

Contribute 🧬

Developed By

Credits

Other actions

License

Fork License

Sample result release notes / changelog