git-changelog

Create a markdown changelog from your git repository (without GitHub).

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Install

Installing with the setup script

The simplest way to install, is to run the installation script:

$ curl -Ls get.dannyb.co/git-changelog/setup | bash

It will:

• Download the executable to /usr/local/bin/git-changelog
• Download the manpage to /usr/local/share/man/man1/git-changelog.1

Installing manually

If you prefer to install manually:

1. Download the git-changelog file, place it somewhere in your path (for example /usr/local/bin), and make it executable.
2. Optionally, download the manpage and place it in /usr/local/share/man/man1.

Example

The changelog in this repository was generated with git changelog.

Usage

Run git changelog in any compatible git repository. It will print a markdown changelog using these rules:

1. Group git log events by tag
2. Only include tags that either:
   • Start with the letter v followed by a digit (v1.2.3)
   • Start with a digit (1.2.3)
3. Only include log events that start with a hyphen followed by a space ("- Fixed something")

Merging with manual content

When using --save, you can include manually edited content in the CHANGELOG.md file. To do so, add a marker in the following format to your CHANGELOG.md file:

<!-- break v1.2.3 -->

This will make git changelog --save perform the following actions:

1. Extract changelog commits until it reaches the tag v1.2.3. Since tags are listed in reverse order, it means it will extract only newer tags.
2. Append the content of the CHANGELOG.md file starting from the marker onward.
3. Save the result back to CHANGELOG.md.

See this CHANGELOG.md file as an example.

Note that this only makes sense when using --save or --reverse --out FILE.md.

Adding commit links and tag comparison links

git-changelog can add two types of links to your change log:

1. Link for each change (commit links).
2. Link for comparing the entire tag with the previous tag (compare links).

Commit links

Set the environment variable CHANGELOG_COMMIT_URL to a URL. %h will be replaced with the short commit hash, and %H with the long commit hash:

export CHANGELOG_COMMIT_URL=https://github.com/DannyBen/git-changelog/commit/%h

Compare links

Set the environment variable CHANGELOG_COMPARE_URL to a URL. %s will be replaced with the git ref range (e.g. v1.0..v1.1):

export CHANGELOG_COMPARE_URL=https://github.com/dannyben/git-changelog/compare/%s

Uninstalling

$ curl -Ls get.dannyb.co/git-changelog/uninstall | bash

Contributing / Support

If you experience any issue, have a question or a suggestion, or if you wish to contribute, feel free to open an issue.

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