bostonaholic/changelog

Changelog

A changelog is a curated, human-readable record of notable changes to a project. It exists for users and consumers of the project — not for developers. Every entry should answer: "How does this affect me?"

This methodology follows Keep a Changelog conventions.

File Structure

The changelog lives at CHANGELOG.md in the project root. If it does not exist, create it.

# Changelog

All notable changes to this project will be documented in this file.

The format is based on [Keep a Changelog](https://keepachangelog.com/en/1.1.0/).

## [Unreleased]

### Added
- ...

### Changed
- ...

### Fixed
- ...

Section Types

Every entry belongs to exactly one section:

| Section | When to use | |---------|-------------| | Added | New features, new commands, new options | | Changed | Changes to existing behavior that users will notice | | Deprecated | Features scheduled for removal in a future release | | Removed | Features removed in this release | | Fixed | Bug fixes | | Security | Vulnerability fixes — always document these |

The Unreleased Section

All changes go under [Unreleased] until a version is tagged. When a version is released, the [Unreleased] section is renamed to [X.Y.Z] - YYYY-MM-DD and a new empty [Unreleased] section is added above it.

## [Unreleased]

## [1.2.0] - 2026-03-15

### Added
- OAuth2 login with GitHub provider

Writing Entries

Each entry is a single bullet point. Write it from the user's perspective — what they can now do, what changed, what was fixed.

Good entries

- Add GitHub OAuth2 login — users can now sign in with their GitHub account
- Fix token expiry check that caused premature session logout
- Change API rate limit from 100 to 1000 requests per minute

Bad entries

- Refactor auth middleware to use new token validation pattern
- Update dependencies
- Fix bug in session.go line 42
- WIP cleanup

The bad entries describe implementation details. They tell developers what changed in the code, not users what changed in their experience.

Filtering Commits for Changelog Entries

When generating changelog entries from commit history, apply this filter:

Include

• feat: commits — these are new features. Every feat commit gets an entry.
• fix: commits — these are bug fixes. Every fix commit gets an entry.
• perf: commits — performance improvements users will feel.
• BREAKING CHANGE: — always include, regardless of commit type.
• security: or security-related fix: — always include.

Exclude

• chore: commits — tooling, build, dependency updates (unless a dependency update changes user-visible behavior, in which case document the behavior change, not the dep update).
• test: commits — internal test additions/changes.
• refactor: commits — internal code restructuring with no behavior change.
• docs: commits — unless the docs change represents the only change in the release and users rely on the documentation as the product.
• ci: commits — CI/CD pipeline changes.
• revert: commits — if a feat was added and reverted in the same release, neither appears in the changelog.
• WIP commits, fixup commits, merge commits.

Applying This in the Ship Phase

When the ship phase runs, before committing:

1. Scan commits since the last changelog entry. Use git log to find commits since the last version tag or the last changelog update.

2. Filter to user-facing commits using the Include/Exclude rules above.

3. Translate each included commit to a user-facing bullet. Rewrite the commit message in plain language if the commit message is technical. The entry should complete the sentence: "Users can now..." or "We fixed..."

4. Add entries under [Unreleased] in the appropriate section.

5. Sort within sections: most impactful changes first.

6. Include the changelog update in the ship commit. The CHANGELOG.md change should be part of the same commit as the code changes it documents.

Example Transformation

Given these commits:

feat(auth): add OAuth2 login with GitHub provider
fix: resolve token expiry causing premature logout
chore: update eslint to v9
test: add unit tests for session middleware
refactor: extract token validation to shared utility

The changelog entry would be:

## [Unreleased]

### Added
- GitHub OAuth2 login — users can sign in with their GitHub account

### Fixed
- Token expiry check that caused sessions to expire prematurely

chore, test, and refactor commits are excluded. The feat and fix commits are rewritten in user-facing language.

Rules

• Never document internal implementation details. If a user would not notice the change in behavior, it does not go in the changelog.
• One entry per user-visible change. Multiple commits that implement a single feature produce one entry.
• Write in past tense. "Added X" not "Add X". The changelog records what happened.
• Keep entries short. One to two sentences maximum. Link to documentation for details if needed.
• Always update [Unreleased]. Never create a versioned section without the user explicitly asking for a release.