changelog

name	changelog
description	Generate a changelog for a specific action or the whole repo

Changelog

Generate a changelog from git history, either for a specific action or across the entire repository.

Arguments

• <action-name> (optional): Name of a specific action directory. If omitted, shows recent activity across all actions.

Steps

1. Determine scope and gather commits

If <action-name> is provided:

# Verify the action exists
test -d <action-name>

# Get commits touching this action's directory
git log --format='%h %as %s' -- <action-name>/

If no argument:

# Get recent commits across the whole repo (last 50)
git log --format='%h %as %s' -50

2. Parse and classify commits

Classify each commit by its conventional commit prefix:

• feat: New features or capabilities
• fix: Bug fixes
• chore: Maintenance, dependency updates, CI changes
• docs: Documentation changes
• refactor: Code restructuring without behavior change
• test: Test additions or modifications
• style: Formatting, whitespace, linting fixes
• perf: Performance improvements
• ci: CI/CD pipeline changes
• build: Build system changes

Commits without a conventional prefix go under other.

3. Compute date range and stats

For a specific action (replace <action-name> with the directory name):

git log --format='%as' -- <action-name>/ | sort | head -1  # earliest
git log --format='%as' -- <action-name>/ | sort | tail -1  # latest
git log --oneline -- <action-name>/ | wc -l               # total commit count

For the whole repo (omit the path filter):

git log -n 50 --format='%as' | sort | head -1  # earliest
git log -n 50 --format='%as' | sort | tail -1  # latest
git log -n 50 --oneline | wc -l               # total commit count

4. For whole-repo mode, show per-action activity

When no action is specified, also show which actions had the most activity:

# Count commits per action directory (top 10)
# Get the date cutoff from the 50th most recent repo commit
CUTOFF_DATE=$(git log -n50 --format=%ci | tail -1)
for dir in */action.yml; do
  [ -e "$dir" ] || continue
  action=$(dirname "$dir")
  count=$(git log --oneline --since="$CUTOFF_DATE" -- "$action/" | wc -l)
  [ "$count" -gt 0 ] && printf '%s %s\n' "$count" "$action"
done | sort -rn | head -10

5. Format the changelog

For a specific action:

Changelog: <action-name>
Date range: YYYY-MM-DD to YYYY-MM-DD
Total commits: N
--------------------------------------------------

### Features
- <hash> <description> (<date>)

### Fixes
- <hash> <description> (<date>)

### Maintenance
- <hash> <description> (<date>)

### Documentation
- <hash> <description> (<date>)

### Other
- <hash> <description> (<date>)

For the whole repo:

Repository Changelog (last 50 commits)
Date range: YYYY-MM-DD to YYYY-MM-DD
--------------------------------------------------

Most active actions:
  <action-name>: N commits
  <action-name>: N commits

### Features
- <hash> <description> (<date>)

### Fixes
- <hash> <description> (<date>)

[...remaining groups...]

Output

A formatted changelog grouped by commit type. Empty groups are omitted. Each entry shows the short SHA, description, and date. Useful before releases or when answering "what changed in this action?"