update-changelog

name

update-changelog

description

Append a new entry to the project's CHANGELOG.md after finishing a feature, fixing a bug, tuning performance, applying a security patch, or before a commit. One chronological markdown file (newest first), bullet points prefixed with a category emoji, concise user-perspective wording. Trigger phrases — "update changelog", "/changelog", "log this change", "add to changelog", "record this in CHANGELOG", "release notes", "version history", "what changed". Also invoke proactively right before `git commit` when staged changes are user-visible, and after completing a feature or bug-fix task. Skip for: formatting-only diffs, test-only edits, doc typo fixes, generated-file churn, dependency lockfile bumps, internal scaffolding the user will never see.

User-question protocol: Whenever this skill needs the user to pick between options, confirm an action, or answer a multiple-choice prompt, you MUST call the AskUserQuestion tool to render a proper interactive picker. Do NOT print numbered options as plain text and wait for the user to type a number — that produces a degraded UX. Free-form questions (open-ended typing) may be asked in prose, but any time you would write "1) … 2) … 3) …", use AskUserQuestion instead.

Mode-less. This skill takes no mode= — callers gate whether to invoke it, not how deep it runs. If you are tempted to add a mode table here, that depth decision belongs to the calling skill.

Update CHANGELOG.md

Append a new entry summarizing the current logical change to CHANGELOG.md at the repo root. One file, chronological, newest-on-top, emoji-prefixed bullets.

When to invoke (and when not to)

Invoke when there is a user-visible or engineering-significant change that just landed or is about to be committed:

• New feature, capability, or UI surface
• Bug fix
• Performance improvement
• Security patch
• Larger technical refactor (architecture shift, module rename, dep swap users would notice)
• Breaking change or removal

Do not invoke for (return without writing):

• Pure formatting / whitespace / lint-only diffs
• Test-only edits (no production code change)
• Doc typo fixes
• Generated-file churn (lockfiles, build artifacts, snapshots)
• Trivial internal cleanup the user will never observe
• Work-in-progress scratch commits

If unsure, ask the user once: "Worth a changelog entry, or skip?"

Step 1 — Determine what changed

Read the diff before writing. The wording must reflect the actual change, not the task description.

Source of truth, in order:

1. If staged changes exist (git diff --cached --stat) → use staged diff.
2. Else if unstaged changes exist (git diff --stat) → use working-tree diff.
3. Else → use the most recent commit (git show --stat HEAD).

Then read the actual diff (git diff --cached / git diff / git show HEAD) — not just file names — so the bullet describes behavior, not files touched.

Collapse the diff into one logical change per bullet. Multiple files implementing the same change = one bullet. Two unrelated changes in the same diff = two bullets.

When a diff produces multiple bullets, write the one with greater user impact first, and group all bullets contiguously at the top of the list (no blank lines between them).

Step 2 — Pick the emoji

Use exactly one emoji from this canonical set as the first character of each bullet. Do not invent new ones.

Existing-file style wins. This canonical emoji set (and the flat-list scaffold in Step 4) applies when creating a new changelog. When appending to a changelog that already exists, match its conventions instead — if it's a Keep a Changelog file with ### Added/Changed/Fixed groups and no emoji, follow that; if it uses a different emoji set or none, match what's there. See Step 4.

Emoji	Category	Use for
✨	Feature	New user-facing capability
🐛	Bug fix	Corrects incorrect behavior
⚡	Performance	Faster, less memory, fewer queries
🔒	Security	Fixes a vulnerability or hardens auth/input handling
♻️	Refactor	Internal restructure users may notice (rename, reorg, dep swap)
🎨	UI / UX	Visual or interaction polish without new capability
🔧	Config	Build, tooling, env, or settings change devs will encounter
📝	Docs	User-facing documentation changes (README, public guides)
🗑️	Removal	Removed feature, endpoint, flag, or file
💥	Breaking	Backwards-incompatible change (also pair with the relevant category if helpful)

If a change fits two categories (e.g. a perf fix that also fixes a bug), pick the one the user would care about more. If it's truly breaking, lead with 💥.

Step 3 — Write the bullet

Before writing, ask: would a user reading these notes a year from now care about this line? If no, skip — it isn't changelog-worthy.

Format: <emoji> <concise sentence>

• Describe the change from the user's perspective, not the file's.
• Match the punctuation and casing of existing entries in the file.
• No issue/PR numbers unless the user asks for them.
• No file paths unless the change is dev-facing tooling (🔧).

Good:

• ✨ add CSV export to the reports page
• 🐛 fix duplicate confirmation emails when signup is retried
• ⚡ cut dashboard load time ~40% by batching project queries
• 🔒 reject path traversal in file-download endpoint

Bad (rewrite before writing):

• ✨ added new feature — not specific
• 🐛 update handler.ts — file-centric, not user-centric
• ♻️ misc cleanup — not changelog-worthy; skip instead

Step 4 — Place the entry

Read the existing CHANGELOG.md.

If the file does not exist — scaffold it:

# Changelog

All notable changes to this project, newest first.

Then append the new bullet under the title block.

If the file exists — first detect its structure and match it; do not impose the flat scaffold above on a file that already has its own shape:

• Keep a Changelog style (## [Unreleased] / ## [x.y.z] version headings with ### Added / Changed / Fixed / Removed groups) → add the entry under ## [Unreleased] in the matching group, creating the ### <group> sub-heading only if it's absent. Use that file's wording conventions — most Keep-a-Changelog files use plain prose, no emoji; match that rather than forcing this skill's emoji set.
• Flat newest-first list (title/intro block, then emoji bullets) → insert at the top of the bullet list, immediately after the intro block, using the canonical emoji from Step 2.
• Any other established shape → follow it. Match the existing entries' emoji usage (or absence), casing, and punctuation.

Preserve the existing file's exact spacing and trailing newline. Only apply this skill's default scaffold and canonical emoji vocabulary when creating a brand-new changelog.

Dedup check — before writing, scan the top ~10 bullets. If a near-identical bullet (same emoji + same core verb/noun) already exists, do not add a duplicate. Either:

• Skip and tell the user it's already logged, or
• If the new change extends the prior one, replace the existing bullet with a refined version (and tell the user you did).

Step 5 — Confirm

Print the bullet you added (or the dedup decision) in one line. Do not stage or commit the changelog yourself unless the user asked you to — leave that to the user's commit flow.

NEVER

• NEVER write a bullet without reading the actual diff first Instead: Run the appropriate git diff / git show and base wording on observed changes. Why: Wording from memory or task description drifts from what actually shipped — produces misleading history.

• NEVER add one bullet per file Instead: Collapse all files implementing one logical change into a single bullet. Why: A changelog is a log of changes, not a log of file edits. Per-file bullets are noise.

• NEVER invent new emojis or use multiple emojis per bullet Instead: Pick exactly one from the canonical table; if it doesn't fit, the change probably isn't changelog-worthy. Why: Inconsistent emoji vocabulary makes the log unscannable and trains future entries to drift further.

• NEVER impose this skill's scaffold or emoji set on an existing CHANGELOG that has its own structure Instead: Detect the file's shape (Keep a Changelog, flat emoji list, or custom) and match it — sections, headings, and emoji-usage-or-absence. Apply the default scaffold and canonical emoji only when creating a new file. Why: A Keep-a-Changelog file flattened into an emoji list (or a flat log scaffolded with ## [Unreleased] sections) corrupts a format that other tooling and readers depend on. sync-docs defers all CHANGELOG writes here precisely so there is one owner and one coherent format.

• NEVER log refactors, tests, formatting, or lockfile churn unless the user explicitly asks Instead: Skip silently or ask once. Why: Internal churn pollutes a user-facing file and buries the entries that matter.

• NEVER stage or commit CHANGELOG.md automatically Instead: Write the file and stop. Let the user (or their commit flow) stage it. Why: Auto-staging surprises users mid-workflow and can land an entry the user wanted to revise.

• NEVER add a duplicate or near-duplicate of an entry already at the top Instead: Run the dedup check in Step 4; skip or refine the existing bullet. Why: Re-running the skill on the same change (common when iterating before commit) silently doubles entries.

• NEVER log a bullet for changes not yet on disk Instead: Re-read the diff at invocation time; if the change has been reverted, amended, or never written, refresh or drop the bullet. Why: Wording carried over from earlier in the conversation can describe code that no longer exists, baking phantom history into the log.