A GitHub Action to update a changelog with the latest release notes.

The Action …

• adds a new second level heading for the new release
• pastes your release notes in the appropriate place in CHANGELOG.md

If your changelog follows the "Keep a Changelog" format and contains an "Unreleased"-heading, the Action will update the heading to point to the compare view between the latest version and HEAD. (Read more about this here)

Don't want to use GitHub Actions? Checkout the changelog-updater CLI that powers this Action. Want to learn more about this Action? Read my introduction blog post.

The Action is best used in a Workflow that listens to the release-event and the type released. This way, the name and body of your release will be added to the CHANGELOG.

The following is an example Workflow ready to be used.

The Workflow checks out the target branch of the release, updates the ./CHANGELOG.md-file with the name and the contents of the just released release and commits the changes back to your repository using git-auto-commit.

# .github/workflows/update-changelog.yaml
name: "Update Changelog"

on:
  release:
    types: [released]

jobs:
  update:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    steps:
      - name: Checkout code
        uses: actions/checkout@v2
        with:
          ref: ${{ github.event.release.target_commitish }}

      - name: Update Changelog
        uses: stefanzweifel/changelog-updater-action@v1
        with:
          latest-version: ${{ github.event.release.tag_name }}
          release-notes: ${{ github.event.release.body }}

      - name: Commit updated CHANGELOG
        uses: stefanzweifel/git-auto-commit-action@v4
        with:
          branch: ${{ github.event.release.target_commitish }}
          commit_message: Update CHANGELOG
          file_pattern: CHANGELOG.md

To generate the release notes automatically for you, I can recommend using the release-drafter Action.

Checkout action.yml for a full list of supported inputs.

At minimum, the Action requires an empty CHANGELOG.md file to exist in your repository. When executed, the Action will place the release notes at the bottom of the document. If your changelog already contains a second level heading, the Action will put the release notes above previous release notes in the document.

Your changelog will look something like this:

# Changelog

## v1.1.0 - 2021-02-01

### Added

- New Feature A

## v1.0.0 - 2021-01-01

- Initial Release

If you want to learn more on how the Action determines the place for the release notes, read the the notes in the README of the CLI that powers this Action.

We use SemVer for versioning. For the versions available, see the tags on this repository.

We also provide major version tags to make it easier to always use the latest release of a major version. For example you can use stefanzweifel/changelog-updater-action@v1 to always use the latest release of the current major version. (More information about this here.)

• Stefan Zweifel
• All Contributors

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.