## Why
While there are other tool out there that will create a changelog output as part
of their workflow none of the ones I could find did so in a way that allowed
formatting the output via multiple templates.
The need to multiple output formats was being driven by the desire to add
changelog support to https://github.com/goreleaser/nfpm and the deb and rpm
changelog formats not being the same.
## Goals
- [x] be simple to use
- [x] provide decent default templates for deb, rpm, release and repository
style changelog formats
- [x] be distributed as a single binary
- [x] reproducible results
- [x] depend on the fewer external things as possible
- [x] store changelog in a transportable format (.yml)
- [x] be possible to use it as a lib in other go projects (namely
[goreleaser](https://goreleaser.com) itself)
## Install
```bash
go install github.com/goreleaser/chglog/cmd/chglog@latest
```
## Usage
The first steps are to run `chglog config` to initialize a configuration file
(`.chglog.yml`) and edit the generated file according to your needs:
```yaml
conventional-commits: false
exclude-merge-commits: false
deb:
distribution: []
urgency: ""
debug: false
owner: ""
package-name: ""
```
The next step is to run `chglog init`.
```yaml
- semver: 0.0.1
date: 2019-10-18T16:05:33-07:00
packager: dj gilcrease
changes:
- commit: 2c499787328348f09ae1e8f03757c6483b9a938a
note: |-
oops i forgot to use Conventional Commits style message
This should NOT break anything even if I am asking to build the changelog using Conventional Commits style message
- commit: 3ec1e9a60d07cc060cee727c97ffc8aac5713943
note: |-
feat: added file two feature
BREAKING CHANGE: this is a backwards incompatible change
- commit: 2cc00abc77d401a541d18c26e5c7fbef1effd3ed
note: |-
feat: added the fileone feature
* This is a test repo
* so ya!
```
Then to generate a `CHANGELOG.md` file you would do `chglog format --template
repo > CHANGELOG.md`
Now whenever you go to do another release you would do `chglog add --version
v#.#.#` (version MUST be semver format)
And that's it!
## Usage as lib
You can look at the code of chglog itself to see how to use it as a library
## Status
- alpha
## Donate
Donations are very much appreciated! You can donate/sponsor on the main
[goreleaser OpenCollective](https://opencollective.com/goreleaser)! It's
easy and will surely help the developers at least buy some ☕️ or 🍺!
## Stargazers over time
[](https://starchart.cc/goreleaser/chglog)
---
Would you like to fix something in the documentation? Feel free to open an
[issue](https://github.com/goreleaser/chglog/issues).
