changelog-release

Automated changelog generation analyzes your commit history to extract features and fixes, compiling them into a CHANGELOG.md file. It uses Conventional Commits formatting to categorize changes and applies Keep a Changelog standards for the output structure.

Semantic versioning determines the next release number by parsing Conventional Commits history. Breaking changes trigger a major bump, new features trigger a minor bump, and fixes trigger a patch bump, ensuring your release tags accurately reflect the impact of recent code changes.

This release management tool is intended for software projects that strictly follow Conventional Commits and SemVer standards. If your project does not use semantic versioning or structured commit messages, the automated version bumping and changelog generation will not function correctly.

The best way to draft release notes and tag a new version is to run an automated release preparation process that evaluates your commit history. It applies a SemVer version bump, updates the changelog, and drafts the corresponding release notes in a single workflow.

Yes, you need Conventional Commits to automate your CHANGELOG.md updates because the automation relies on parsing structured commit messages. Without this commit format, the tool cannot determine the correct semantic version bump or categorize entries for the changelog.