| name | gen-changelog |
| description | Curate the [Unreleased] section of docs/CHANGELOG.md from git history. Triggers on "curate the changelog", "update the changelog", "/gen-changelog", "онови changelog", "курування журналу". Reads git log since the last tag, FILTERS out what a reader never feels (test/ci/chore/merge), GROUPS commits about one feature into one bullet, and REWRITES technical subjects into plain language under the six Keep a Changelog categories (Added/Changed/Deprecated/ Removed/Fixed/Security). The result must have FEWER lines than the raw log — that is the proof of curation, not a dump. Leaves the edit in the working tree; never commits or pushes. |
| allowed-tools | Bash(git log:*), Bash(git describe:*), Bash(git tag:*), Read(docs/**), Edit(docs/**) |
| user-invocable | true |
| disable-model-invocation | true |
| argument-hint | |
| model | claude-haiku-4-5 |
| effort | low |
Skill: gen-changelog
Goal: turn the raw commit log since the last release into the curated ## [Unreleased] section of docs/CHANGELOG.md — a list a non-engineer reads once and understands.
This is the manual/rehearsal half of the changelog step. The same curation runs headless inside the merge gate (.github/workflows/release.yml) when the release PR merges; the logic is identical, only where it runs changes.
Inputs
docs/CHANGELOG.md — its existing style and the latest released version.- The commits since that release (
git log <tag>..HEAD).
templates/changelog-entry.md — the shape of a curated [Unreleased] block.
Protocol
- Find the baseline. Read
docs/CHANGELOG.md. The latest released version is the highest ## [X.Y.Z] - YYYY-MM-DD heading — ignore ## [Unreleased], which you are about to fill.
- Read the raw input. Run
git log <latest-tag>..HEAD --oneline --no-merges (the tag matches the version, e.g. v0.1.0).
- Curate — three moves, this is the whole point:
- Filter out what a reader never feels:
test:, ci:, tooling-only chore:, merge commits.
- Group several commits about one feature into a single bullet.
- Rewrite the technical subject into plain language. Drop the
feat: / fix: prefix.
- Place each bullet under one of the six Keep a Changelog categories — Added · Changed · Deprecated · Removed · Fixed · Security — and write them into
## [Unreleased]. Skip any empty category. Follow templates/changelog-entry.md.
- Replace
## [Unreleased], never append to it. Regenerate its body from the log — if it already holds bullets from a previous run, overwrite them rather than stacking a second copy. Keep the ## [Unreleased] heading on top so the next cycle repeats.
Definition of Done
## [Unreleased] holds curated bullets under the right Keep a Changelog categories.- The result has fewer lines than the raw
git log — noise filtered, one-feature commits grouped.
- Each bullet is one line, plain language, no
feat:/fix: prefix, no trailing period.
- Idempotent: rerunning replaces the
## [Unreleased] body — it never appends a second copy of the same bullets.
- The edit is in the working tree only — not committed, not pushed.
Anti-patterns
- Transcribing, not curating. If the changelog has as many lines as the log, you dumped it. Filter and group.
- Leaving in the noise.
test:, ci:, tooling chore:, and merge commits never reach a user-facing changelog.
- Technical phrasing. "add idx on memes.tags" is a commit subject, not a changelog line. Write "faster lookup of memes by tag".
- Committing or pushing. Leave the suggestion in the working tree; a human applies it.
- Editing outside
docs/.
References
templates/changelog-entry.md — curated [Unreleased] scaffold (Keep a Changelog categories).
